Benefits of Extending Collaborative Educational Cloud with IoT

Malopolska Educational Cloud (MEC) is a unique undertaking in terms of employing simultaneously a variety of modern and closely integrated ICT (cloud computing, social media, and multimedia) to support unusual collaboration scenarios involving high schools and universities. The environment leverages technologies designed for enterprises, which are suitable in terms of scalability, but do not perfectly address the specifics of MEC environment. Therefore, in this paper we focus on the application of Internet of Things (IoT) approach that would both improve education and streamline organization. From the variety of educational activities implemented in MEC, our area of focus is multi-party audiovisual collaboration during online classes. The scale and geographic scattering of participants makes this particular activity technically challenging and, at the same time, promising when considering application of IoT approach. In our opinion, extension of existing MEC infrastructure with IoT-compatible appliances could result in better organization of the collaboration and improve involvement of students in the educational process