What is a smart classroom? A critical review of the concept

Enfoque

Introduction: The word “smart” has been used to define the contribution of information and communication technologies (ICT) in different areas. The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and their ability to collect data in real time from a variety of sources, analyse large amounts of data and apply machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques to extract knowledge from the data and make decisions in real time can clearly help improve the efficiency of numerous processes and reduce their costs. The concepts of “smart city”, “smart health” or “smart industry” are widely recognised examples of the use of the term ”smart”. Smart cities are urban areas or towns that rely heavily on ICT to improve the quality of life of their citizens and promote economic growth, sustainability, participation, etc. Similarly, smart health has been defined as the provision of healthcare services in context-aware environments and smart cities. Industry 4.0 or Smart Industry is based on linking machines, industrial processes and information systems using ICT to improve aspects such as manufacturing and distribution. And finally, Koper’s definition of Smart Learning Environments promote better and faster learning through the use of digital, contextual and adaptive devices. In all these areas, artificial intelligence techniques and big data collection play a central role. As far as education is concerned, the concept of the ”smart classroom” is widely publicised in the literature. According to our definition of ”smart”, in a smart classroom the data collected from the physical learning space could be analysed to gain insights into the students and teachers, and provide the later with relevant information to improve their work. However, the term ”smart classroom” does not always include the use of ICT, data and artificial intelligence.

Objective: In our contribution, we examine the use of the term smart classroom in the scientific literature and provide a categorisation of the different variants of this concept.

Methodology: We analyse the articles indexed in scientific databases in which the term smart classroom is explicitly used and we investigate the different uses of this concept. In particular, we analyse whether ”smart classrooms” merely address the introduction of ICT as a learning tool or whether, on the contrary, it addresses what happens in the classroom, how students learn and how the teaching-learning process is developing.