In the article "Making Mona Lisa Smile," the author describes how a new technology called the Facial Action Coding System enables computers to identify human emotions. The use of this technology, to read the emotional expressions of students in a classroom, is valuable. I believe this technology would be great to use in a classroom. It would really help the teacher with his or her lesson. Dr. Huang predicts that "A classroom computer could recognize when a student is becoming confused or bored". If a simple classroom computer can determine a students' emotions, that would be a great assistance to a teacher. The teacher would then know if he should go into greater detail or if he should make his lesson plan a little more interesting.

Human Beings can be really good at hiding their emotions. With the Facial Action Coding System no one would be able to hide their true emotions. If someone was really depressed, but they portray themselves to be happy, this technology could stop that person from hurting themselves or others. If a school therapist or school social worker had this technology it would make their jobs so much easier. They could sense what the students are really feeling, rather than what the students want them to think their feeling. Also, the school therapist would know if the patient would need to be prescribed any medicine.

Another reason why the Facial Action Coding System would be a good idea is because, as stated in the article, it could reveal so much about the science of emotions. The FACS (Factial Action Coding System) could detect a false smile. If you are not feeling geniunely happy, if you are just "putting on a happy face" this technolgy would be able to see through what your false act. This new technology could become the next big thing. It would be able to uncover the truth about alot of people.

The last argument I am going to state on why the FACS would be valuable on detecting students emotions is that the technology could tell whether a student is telling the truth or not. The article states in paragraph 8 that usually when someone squint their eyes slightly, to produce wrinkling at the corner of their eyes usually means that their not being thruthful. FACS uses muscle clues to determine whether a person if being truthful or not. This would be great in a classroom. For example, if someone is being bullied and they tell the teacher but the bully says he isn't bullying anyone, this would be great for the teacher. The teacher would know which one of her students is telling the truth.

In Conclusion, the Facial Action Coding System would be a superb idea. This new technology would not only be very interesting but it would also save many lives. This technology could be used in many different jobs. It could also help many people. With this technology you would no longer have to take someones word on how their feeling, even when you have a gut feeling telling you otherwise. Rather than assuming what someone is feeling you could now know for sure with the Facial Action Coding System. 