Designing an Educational Internet of Things Toolbox: A case-study of a learner-centric tool design

Abstract

This work presents a design case-study of an Internet of Things (IoT) learning toolkit that highlights salient design principles for the FabLearn community. This work showcases the careful decision about what to expose to and what to hide from the learner. We look at Blikstein's idea of "selective exposure"and build upon the fundamental constructionist design principles: low-floor, high-ceiling, and wide walls. The researchers have designed an IoT platform consisting of a physical computing kit called the "White Arrow."Initial field tests were carried out with 17 secondary school students ages 13 to 18. Students were introduced to the toolkit and encouraged to develop project ideas. The researchers collected students' experiences with the toolkit through observation, interviews, and questionnaires. The results were clearly positive considering the learning overhead, feedback from students, and project ideas that were generated. Although still work in progress, we hope to highlight important tool design principles that can help make Fab Labs and maker spaces more learning-focused and more inclusive