Keynotes and Speakers for ITx 2018
Nathan’s twenty-year career in IT includes work in software development, business intelligence, and a period as Chief Technical Officer for a company using satellites to track aircraft, boats, and people in harm’s way.
He joined Otago Polytechnic after some years heading the Department of Computing at Ara Institute of Canterbury, and he is a passionate advocate of professional education and industry accreditation.
At OP, he divides his time between teaching Bachelor of IT Students and working on projects with the Business Development Team.
He is constantly on the lookout for opportunities to provide students with experiences that develop their skills and make them ready for industry.
In this paper, we describe an educational initiative incorporating the “Internet of Things” (IoT) paradigm into an undergraduate Information Technology course.
As IoT technology is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, it is imperative that computing students remain up-to-date with developments in this space. To this end, we guided a group of third-year IT students to develop and deploy an IoT network as their final year capstone project.
We report and reflect on the opportunities and challenges this presented as an educational undertaking, and conclude that the wide range of IT-related subjects encompassed in the IoT paradigm means such a project is well-suited to the capstone curriculum.
We offer recommendations to others grappling with the integration of IoT into computing education.