The internet of things (IoT) is defined as the internetworking of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items which have embedded electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data. 

In the early 2010’s, there was a lot of scepticism about IoT. However, this has now flipped to being the core business focus of many companies, including Google, Apple, Cisco and Telecom operators. This is because the potentials and benefits of IoT are limitless. IoT can change the way we work and live. It can be used to save time and resources, manage assets and optimise performance among others.

In 2011, the number of internet-connected devices surpassed the number of human beings on the planet. By 2020, it is expected that there will be about 50 billion IoT devices.

The future looks promising, though there are still areas that need to be addressed, including technological barriers, such as, security and automatic management of several IoT devices.

There are numerous examples where IoT is envisaged and has prospects of improving processes, some of these are:

• Smart Food/Water Monitor – water quality, water leakages, river floods, water management, and green houses, etc.
• Smart Health – fall detection/physical activity monitoring for elderly/disabled people and patients’ surveillance, etc.
• Smart Living – energy and water use, intelligent shopping applications, smart home appliances and safety monitoring, etc.
• Smart Environment Monitoring – forest fire detection, air pollution, landslide/avalanche prevention, earthquake early detection, and marine/coastal surveillance, etc.
• Smart Manufacturing – smart product management, compost, production line
• Smart Energy – smart grid, photovoltaic installations, wind turbines, water flow and power supply controllers, etc.
• Smart Buildings – indoor climate control, perimeter access control, intelligence fire alarm, intrusion detection systems and art/goods preservation, etc.
• Smart Transport and Mobility – fleet tracking, vehicle auto-diagnosis and connected militarised defence, etc.
• Smart Industry – tank level, maintenance and repair, ozone presence and explosive/hazardous gases, etc.
• Smart City – smart parking, noise urban maps, smart lightning, smart irrigation of public places and smart tourism, etc.

In terms of ubiquitous learning, IoT provides institutions the ability to improve educational outcomes by providing richer learning experiences and by gaining real-time, actionable insight into student performance. Whether it is a tablet they brought from home or a school-issued laptop, more and more student learning is taking place on wireless devices. As educational organisations start to implement cloud computing and radio frequency identification (RFID) across an IoT platform, they are able to capture, manage and analyse Big Data. This also means that further effort can be put in learning analytics to improve learning and students' performance and experience.

References:

• Internet of Things – From Research and Innovation to market Deployment. Editors: Ovidiu Vermesan and Peter Friess, River Publishers in Communication, 2014.
• 'The Internet of Things How the Next Evolution of the Internet Is Changing Everything', Dave Evans, Cisco IBSC 2011. Available at: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/about/ac79/docs/innov/IoT_IBSG_0411FINAL.pdf
• How the Internet of Things Is Transforming Education. Available at: http://www.zatar.com/sites/default/files/content/resources/Zebra_Education-Profile.pdf