In "Making Mona Lisa Smile," Nick D'Alto introduces a new idea of using computers to intepret emotions from facial expressions. Dr. Thomas Huang envisions a possibility in which online classrooms could use facial analysis in order to more effectively instruct students. However, despite the possible benefits facial analysis could provide online classrooms, things like privacy, practicality, and effectiveness are obstacles that must be addressed.

Privacy has long been one of the post important aspects of life. The same holds true for the internet as well. People value their anonymity, and they often go online in order to be someone else - someone different than they are in real life. Facial recognition requires access to the face, something many internet users are not fond of allowing, especially on the internet where everything is effectively open. Counterarguments might say that online classrooms could keep images of faces secret and secure, but every since the invention of technology, hackers, crackers, and similar people have always been able to exploit security issues and gain access to the databases with images of faces. Many people would rather no one see their faces and have no customized ads or information as opposed to having a computer know "when [they're] happy or sad." While facial analysis may prove to be quite a useful and revolutionary technology, many users would forever remain wary that their privacy (and their face) might be compromised.

Praticality also remains an issue for would-be-users of this technology. As D'Alto writes, not everyone's "home PC [can] handle the complex algorithms used to decode Mona Lisa's smile" (and subsequently their own). Many would be unwilling to buy a more powerful PC simply to allow the facial analysis software to work. While most, if not all, people acknowledge that education is important, powerful PC's often cost over one thousand dollars, a price that many are unable or unwilling to pay for a convenient online education. Also, there remains the issue of the technology itself. How would it be distributed? Would it be software or would it be built into computers? Would there be a price tag attached? These are all questions that affect how practical this technology is. Imagine people empty their wallet of a couple thousand dollars only to find that the algorithm only comes preinstalled on certain computers, or is incredibly buggy and doesn't work properly. People might argue that users should educate themselves on how the system works before even considering buying the product, but often, for products like this, the information is woefully incomplete or exaggerated. Until the technology can become accessible to the average everyday user, it will fail to successfully be implemented in online classrooms.

Lastly, there remains the question of truly how effective it would be. Softwares relating to human qualities are often rather inconsistent and require extensive testing. Emotions are also a tricky thing, as people sometimes try to hide them or fake them. While D'Alto states that "to an expert, faces don't lie," in a educational setting, that often doesn't matter. Most students are often relatively reluctant to learn, possibly putting their face in a perpetual cycle of anger, disgust, sadness, or even fear. In school, education carries on regardless of emotional state. While teachers do care about the emotional wellbeing of their students, they still must teach like the do any other. In general, emotions are often ignored in the face of studying and education - students study what they need to, no questions asked. This raises the question of truly how useful would facial analysis be in an online classroom? There isn't much computers can do to adjust to human emotions. Computers also lack a soul, so they therefore lack emotions and empathy and sympathy. Without those, how could they possibly understand what a student needs? Humans, as D'Alto states, indeed "perform this same impressive "calculation" every day." However, humans can also react much more appropriately. Also, there is no guarantee that the technology would read emotions correctly. And unlike fingerprint scanners or facial recognition, there is no second chance with emotions. Either the computer interprets them incorrectly or correctly. The fact remains that having a facial recognition from an online, unemotional avatar simply would not provide many advantages over a regular online classroom.

Nick D'Alto's "Making Mona Lisa Smile" provides a detailed analysis of a new, potentially revolutionary technology that could prove incredibly useful in future projects. Facial analysis has the potential to totally revamp our online experience. However, the online classroom isn't one of those places. Due to privacy, praticality, and effectiveness issues, facial analysis seems to be a ratherless worthless technology to implement in an online classroom.