A computer reading your emotions? In the article "Making Mona Lisa Smila" the author talks about how Facial Action Coding System is able to read emotions and how it may help students in the classroom. This technology in a classroom will not be beneficial because it is costly, may distract students, invades privacy, and may lead to ineffective learning.

In paragraph 7 the author states "Your home PC can't handle the complex algorithms used to decode Mona Lisa's smile". The average home PC's price ranges from about $200 USD to $500 USD. Since the average home computers can not handle these algorithms then the school must purchase higher end computers which will be very costly since every student will need one. Also every student travels throughout the school so the school must be able to purchase laptops with this advanced hardware and software so that the students will be able to use them in every class they attend.

In paragraph 6 of the article the author states "A classroom computer could recognize when a student is becoming confused or bored" and "then it could modify the lesson". When in a lesson at school not every student will enjoy the lesson, which will cause them to have a bored or even tiresome expression. Having this expression will cause the computer to attempt and make the lesson more intresting; but what if the student is still bored? The computer will keep trying to modify the lesson which could cause it to lead away from the original goal of the lesson so much that the student is no longer focused on the original topic.

Having a computer constantly reading your emotions will invade on your privacy. Paragraph 6 states "A classroom computer could recognize when a student is becoming confused or bored" "Then it could modify the lesson". When detecting the student is bored or confused it will have to relay this information to the teacher letting them know that due to the student's emotion that it will be modifying the lesson to accomodate them. This means that when a student may be having a bad day or may just be in a bad mood that it will recognize that and store that information so that the teacher can know. The student may not have wanted anyone to know but now this program doesn't allow that student his right to privacy.

Since this program will be modifying your lesson due to your emotions it may lead away from what the teacher was originally trying to teach. If the intended goal is to teach the student how the mitochondria works withing a cell but the student has a bored face on the program will try to modify the lesson. When the lesson is modified it will try to catch the attention of the student even if it has to continue modifying th elesson. The lesson can be modified to such an extent that the student does learn the lesson partially but not as exstensively as the teacher had originally intended.

Facial Action Coding Systems is a great asset in scientific field. The program though is not practicial within a setting such as a classroom. The program may lead to expensive purchases for the school, more distractions for the students, privacy invasion, and lessons which do not teach exactly as intended.