Abstract:

Several studies show up the gap between traditional learning and active learning methods [1],[2] and it is proposed a close approach between learning and social and work situations. On the other hand, the Internet of Things (IoT) are considered as a new technological revolution that will affect all human activities and the relationships between the environment and humans. This scenario is called Cyber Physical Societies (CPSoc) [3]. Such technologies should affect education practices, since several studies estimates that CPSoc will change in someway the human activities.

Delors [4] in the four pillar of education discuss as the fundamental point of the education of young professionals must develop the automony, judgement and and self responsability. Delors also considers that “...students should have the opportunity to try out and develop their abilities by becoming involved in work experience schemes or social work while they are still in education...”. [4] Such argument denotes that learning activities shoud take into consideration the advances in the CPSoc to fill the gap between classroom activities social and work activities. A possibility is to use some IoT devices as a tool for develop active learning initiatives in order to develop the skills proposed in [1],[2] and [4].

This work proposes an IoT device called “smart trash can” to develop learning activities related to physics and sustainability subjects, creating a learning context with daily activities. The first object of the smart trash can is to link concepts such as dielectric constant and electromagnetic field to create a device that identify what kind of trash the student is disposing. The student is able to change the sensors regulation affecting the range of dielectric constant that could be detected by the smart trash can and discuss whether such set of materials could be detected or not. The proposed IoT device informs which kind of material was detected for each trash disposed.

The same device could also be used to make a direct link between the students’ consumption and trash generation, as a way to provide some measurements about the impact that a person, or a group of people, may cause in the environment. Such active practice may provide links between sustainability concepts and students’ daily activities.

Both approaches are examples of active and contextual learning that the proposed IoT device may promote. The work presents the main features of the smart trash can that could be used in learning activities and examples about how to use it as a learning tool.

References:
[1] Freeman, Brigid, Simon Marginson, and Russell Tytler. The age of STEM: educational policy and practice across the world in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Routledge, 2014.
[2] HWANG, Gwo-Jen; SUNG, Han-Yu; CHANG, Hong-Sheng. An Integrated Contextual and Web-Based Problem-Solving Approach to Improving Students' Learning Achievements, Attitudes and Critical Thinking. In:Advanced Applied Informatics (IIAIAAI), 2014 IIAI 3rd International Conference on. IEEE, 2014. p. 366-371.
[3]  RHO, Seungmin; VASILAKOS, Athanasios V.; CHEN, Weifeng. Cyber physical systems technologies and applications. Future Generation Computer Systems, v. 56, p. 436-437, 2016.
[4] DELORS, Jacques et.al. Educação, um tesouro a descobrir: relatório para a UNESCO da Comissão Internacional sobre Educação para o século XXI. São Paulo. Cortez Editora, 1998.

Keywords:

Active learning, internet of things.