IoT to Support Active Learning in Engineering Education

Abstract

Engineering education requires a rather difficult learning process, which aims at building the student's capacities in theoretical insights in science, project-oriented thinking and co-operation, experimental verification of basic concepts in specific labs, deductive and creative thinking, and multi-disciplinary engineering. Many education techniques to help in that learning process have been proposed in literature and have found their way into the daily learning process. Two very prominent active learning techniques used in engineering education are on one hand the virtual and remote laboratories and on the other hand the fab labs. The upcoming internet of things paradigm is now adding new possibilities to further enhance those two techniques to support engineering education. In this chapter, the authors introduce some of those possibilities, describe use cases, and draw some conclusions on the current state of research.