Imagine someone that is so familiar with a friend or loved one that they can tell what emotion they're feeling without having to say anything at all. Better yet, imagine if something was this smart. In the article, "Making Mona Lisa Smile," the author, Nick D'Alto, tells the readers about a new technology created to read the emotional cues from a human to further the communicable relationship between computers and humans alike. This technology, created by Professor Thomas Huang, "calculates" the emotions displayed on the face of the user of the computer, and was said to encourage learning and help the boredom and other emotions often felt by humans when learning. Later on in the article, D'Alto writes about how helpful this superior technology would be in the classroom and other learning environments, compared to the average computer used in schools all around the world. The technology described in the article, "Making Mona Lisa Smile," that reads the emotional expressions of students in a classroom is valuable to learners all over the world and should be used in modern-day schools.

The advanced technology recently created to read the emotions of the user, and impact the way they learn in the classroom is helpful and valuable. This is shown throughout the article by describing how the technology works and how it can be used to locate the emotions on the users' face. "Using video imagery, the new emotion-recognition software can track these facial movements- in a real face or in the painted face of Mona Lisa," (Paragraph 4). This quote describes to the reader the advancements of this technology, and just how unique the technology is in its intelligence. "Of course, most of us would have trouble actually describing each facial trait that conveys happy, worried, etc... His [Dr. Huang] new computer software stores similar anatomical information as electronic code," (Paragraph 5). This quote is helpful in giving the reader more information about how advanced this technology is, and how superior it is to even the skill of humans. Together, these quotes show that the technology would ultimately be more valuable in the classroom for the use of students.

One may even ask, "How would this technology helps students?" The answer to that very question lies in the article, "Making Mona Lisa Smile." This special software is very important to students because it could very well increase their chances of success in the classroom. "A classroom computer could recognize when a student is becoming confused or bored,' Dr. Huang predicts. 'Then it could modify the lesson, like an effective human instructor," (Paragraph 6). This quote gives the reader more information about how helpful this computer software could be in a learning environment, by being able to keep the learner's attention on the knowledge they are consuming. Another quote, from paragraph 6, "For example, if you smile when a Web ad appears on your screen, a similar ad will follow. But if you frown, the next ad will be different." This quote explains more examples of the skills of the computer technology, and gives the reader an idea about how students can use these basic, yet complicated tools to their advantage in the classroom.

This great technology can be so helpful to students, teachers, and employees in almost all kinds of learning environments by being able to give each and every person the best kind of learning session that they need. The technoloical devices at schools in this day and age just seem inferior to the kind of learning one can get via this advanced software created by Dr. Huang. "Your home PC can't handle the complex algorithms used to decode Mona Lisa's smile," (Paragraph 7). This quote shows evidence in the comparison between regular technology and the unique technology that is created for the use of learning in a classroom. Another quote from the article, "To an expert, faces don't lie; these muscles clues are sometimes used to spot when a "smiling" politician or celebrity isn't being truthful," (Paragraph 8), tells the readers that there are signs of false emotions and real emotions. These signs are easily caught by the technology software, and used to make learning easy and fun in the classroom, which can be extremely beneficial in the long run for school systems and teachers.

Technology these days can be used for both good or bad things, and often, technology is used for both. But a technology that is so helpful for learning and other school things is good, and needs to be used in order to improve a learning environment. The technology software that can read human emotion, and from there, improve the knowledge a student consumes is so very important and valuable. That's why this superior and advanced technology is valuable to students and school systems all over the world.