The African Centre of Excellence for Internet of Things has shared with different higher learning institutions best practices in teaching the internet of Things in order to discuss together how to improve IoT teaching. It was held this 6th April 2020.

These best practices were shared during a one-day virtual workshop, which put together representatives of institutions dealing with education of internet of things.
The IoT is expanding, as the continual decrease in size, cost and energy consumption of wireless devices boosts the number of deployed devices dramatically. With the advancement of the IoT, there is a worldwide need for technical professionals involved in developing IoT networks

While sharing the experience, the Acting Centre Director Dr. Damien Hanyurwimfura said that one of the ways that was found relevant and giving good results is to introduce the Self-directed learning activities where by case studies and mini research projects are given to students for their own studies and documentation.
He also revealed that effort should be put on giving students the opportunity OF having hands on works. “Through simulators (CISCO Packet tracer, Proteus, etc) students are directed on how to program IoT equipment and are given projects to work”, he added.

Among other methods that are used to better teach IoT is to connect them with companies and industry and participate in their project implementation for a period of 8 weeks in order to get used and experienced.

Amid the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, teaching and learning internet of things is being handled by providing a course handbook to students in advance and having lecture materials uploaded to the website for easy access.

The workshop which was organized by The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics had the main objective of sharing experiences gained in organizing training activities on IoT for a diverse range of participants (students, researchers, managers, practitioners, regulators, etc).

Other Universities which shared their experiences include the UNIVERSITAT POLITÈCNICA DE VALÈNCIA, Spain, Linnaeus University, Sweden, Kobe Institute of Computing, Japan.