An IoT and Wearable Technology Hackathon for Promoting Careers in Computer Science

Abstract

This paper explores the use of a constructivist 21st-century learning model to implement a week-long workshop, delivered as a "hackathon," to encourage preuniversity teenagers to pursue careers in STEM, with a particular emphasis on computer science. For Irish preuniversity students, their experience of computing can vary from word processing to foundational programming, and while many schools are looking to introduce more ICT into the classroom, many students are left with a narrow view of what computer science is all about. Twenty-one students participated in the workshop and completed pre-and post-surveys, and a free word association exercise in the areas of computing and careers in computing. Analysis revealed that students' motivation to learn about the design process, programming, inputs and outputs, and wearable technology (wearables)/Internet of Things (IoT) increased following participation. There were also increases in confidence in inputs and outputs and wearables/IoT following participation, as well as changes in the computing word associations, with students associating computing more with computer programming terms rather than general terms such as the Internet. The findings suggest that the combination of a hackathon event and a model for 21st century learning can be effective in motivating and increasing the self-efficacy of preuniversity teenagers in a number of emerging technological contexts such as IoT and wearables.

STEM Learning and Career Orientation via IoT Hands-on Activities in Secondary Education

“…Research efforts more closely related with our work include [4] where, a case study is considered over four groups of secondary school students acting as virtual IoT application designers, and [5] which incorporates an IoT-based learning framework into a software engineering embedded system analysis and design course. In a similar to [5] context, Byrne et al [6] explore the use of a constructivist 21 st century learning model by implementing a week-long workshop, delivered as a "hackathon" to encourage pre-university teenagers to pursue STEM oriented careers, with a particular emphasis on computer science. They examined student perceptions and attitudes regarding computer science and found out that their motivation with respect to the design process, programming and IoT/wearable technologies was enhanced.…”

Easy Payout, Advanced shopping, and Security in Super Market

“…[12] Using Smart Edge IoT Devices for Safer, Rapid Response with Industry IoT Control Operations (2016) presents a model that combines the capabilities of smart IoT devices with control system gateways using real-time challenge-response for secure control operations. [13] A Secure IoT Service Architecture With an Efficient Balance Dynamics Based on Cloud and Edge Computing (2018) represents a significant security and efficient problems like internal attacks account for a large fraction of security problems. [14] Light-Weight and Privacy-Preserving Authentication Protocol for Mobile Payments in the Context of IoT (2019) shows that the protocol is feasible and efficient for the smart devices in the IoT.…”

Tron Days: Horizontal Integration and Authentic Learning

“…Although much of the research has been done in the field of computer science, there have been examples of effective implementations of hackathons where physical tangibles have been produced [2]. In [2], the authors offered a Hackathon where participants were challenged to design, build and program internet of things (IoT) wearable devices to accomplish challenges.…”

“…Although much of the research has been done in the field of computer science, there have been examples of effective implementations of hackathons where physical tangibles have been produced [2]. In [2], the authors offered a Hackathon where participants were challenged to design, build and program internet of things (IoT) wearable devices to accomplish challenges. The aim of the Hackathon was to encourage interest in STEM fields, but the results showed a marked increase in engagement with the material amongst all of the participants, as well as success in designing and building physical artifacts [2].…”

“…The "small" challenges were designed as a series of warm up problems with the goal of introducing the teams to the concept of working together and to investigate and seek out knowledge on their own [2].…”