How would you feel if their was a computer watching you as do your work? Do you think that would be weird and maybe even uncomfortable? Well, that is what would be happening if their were computers that read your expressions. In the article "Making Mona Lisa Smile" Dr. Huang and Dr Eckman have developed a system that does so. The use of this technoogly to read the emotional expressions of students in a classroom is not valuable.

First of all, the article states that "Eckman has six basic emotions- happiness, surprise, anger disgust fear and sadness...". If a computer was to detect any of these emotions from a student while he or she is working there wouldn't be an easy way of knowing whether the student is struggling or if the student is doing just fine. This quote from "Making Mona Lisa Smile" shows how FACS (the Facial Action Coding System) won't necessarily be valuable to students when they are in their classrooms working.

Secondly, from

"Making Mona Lisa Smile" states "Your home PC can't handle the complex algorithms used to decode Mona Lisa's smile". The computers students use at home could be the same as the computers they do there work on during class. By saying this there is a possibility that FACS won't even work for styudents when there at school doing work. The quote used above shows that you cant count on FACS to be available for the use of students in class.

Lastly, from the article "According to the Facial Feedback Theory of Emotion, moving your facial muscles not only expresses emotions, but also may even help produce them". If a student had FACS on there computer and they were doing there work in class and they smile because another student did something nice for them, and FACS detected them smiling and then modified their work that could be a bad thing. It could be a bad thing if the student was doing their work and they actually didnt understand what they were doing and now that FACS detected them smiling they are now doing harder work which is a detriment to the student. This quote shows that having FACS on a students computer while they are working in class could be bad.

In conclusion, having the FACS technolgy on a students computer while they are working at school in their classroom is not valuable. The article does not give any examples or ocurrances of the technology to read a students emotions of having any good outcomes. The use of FACS could incorectly detect wether a student is having trouble or not, it only detects basic emotions, and it may not even be available to the use of students depending on the type of computer they use in their classroom.