It's safe to say that almost everyone on Earth has tried to hide their emotions on at least one occasion. Humans do this for a reason, and that reason is that they do not want others to know about them. Trying to pry those emotions out can lead to anger, frustration, and confusion. So a person being surrounded by emotion-detecting computers might not be the greatest thing. Now add the factor of millions of emotional teens being faced with them in a place where they are already strained. One of the worst things one can do is assume about something they can't truly understand. The use of the Facial Action Coding System is not valuable to students in a classroom.

The first obvious elephant in the room is that everyone shows emotions in a different way. While Dr. Huang points out that human facial expressions are universal, he does not deny that "individuals often show varying degrees of expression" (Paragraph 4). This stands to be an issue when it comes to reading a persons face. If everyone has different facial expressions, how effective can a computer be at tracking them? It isn't a valuable resource to use if there are so many unreliable factors that play into the performance.

In this day and age computers have taken over in classrooms. Students ranging from elementary to college use them on a daily basis. By adding FACS, Dr. Huang predicts that " A classroom computer could recognize when a student is becoming confused or bored. Then it could modify the lesson, like an effective human instructor" (Paragraph 6). This sounds great, but it just isn't reliable. When using a computer in a classroom, students aren't exposed to just the computer. Their environment can effect the way they feel as well. A student could be having multiple conversations that spark emotions like anger, boredom, or confusion. If FACS picks up on those emotions that don't accurately reflect how the student feels about the lesson content, then it isn't providing valuable information. Without it providing useful information, the technology isn't valuable in a classroom.

One aspect of FACS that is useful is that it would create a system that appeal to individual users. A nice example used in the article is "if you smile when a Web ad appears on your screen, a similar ad might follow. But if you frown, the next ad will be different" (Paragraph 6). This is extremely helpful and great for getting rid of those pesky ads. However, it has nothing to do with students in a classroom. Students aren't exposed to ads, and this would provide no benefit for them. The value of this is nonexistent in a place where it can't be used, such as a classroom.

While FACS may be an extremely impressive software, it just doesn't serve as a benefit for students. There are no truly reliable elements that will improve classrooms in a meaningful way. It may be useful to some, but when it comes to students it is not a valuable piece of technology to have.