Reframing classroom sensing: promise and peril

Abstract

Should we put cameras in every classroom?At first glance, this may sound like a dystopian nightmare set in a surveillance state.And yet, with careful deployment and strong regulations in place for data use, I argue that such an approach could help us avoid a future where students constantly have their heads buried in a device.At the same time, it could enable teachers to get the feedback they currently lack to make continuous improvements to their teaching and to the classroom environment-and even to do their own action research.Researchers and practitioners in learning science, privacy, and ICT must come together to build frameworks that will protect students and teachers, and shape this positive future.In this article, I discuss why this approach is needed, who benefits from it, and how we're building systems that improve education. WHAT TECHNOLOGY CAN DO FOR EDUCATIONHerb Simon, the godfather of artificial intelligence and a multi-award-winning teacher, observed the following truth about the teaching and learning process: "A teacher can advance learning only by influencing what the student does to learn."Influencing what the student does is, at heart, a cycle of detection and intervention-observing and interpreting before acting.To be able to provide the right intervention that guides the next steps in the learner's development, an instructor must know quite a lot about what is happening in any given learning situation.This detection process is hard.In the Insights → Classroom sensing has great potential as a tool for teacher professional development.→ We must develop appropriate frameworks to address privacy and data use concerns.