In this article "Making Mona Lisa Smile," the author described how a new technology called the Facial Action Coding Systems enables computers to identify human emotions.

This technology could be used to read the emotional expressions of students in a classroom, but should it be used in classrooms?

One reason why it should is very simple. This technology ,as stated by Dr. Huang in paragraph 6, "A classroom computer could recognize when a student is becoming confused or bored." This would eliminate the struggle of feedback for a teacher. Teachers do not know exactly how a student feels about the lesson because, "most human communication is nonverbal." The computers would be able to tell the teacher whether or not the students are understanding the lesson.

Another reason why it would be valuable for these computers in classes is that teachers would be able to eliminate the struggle of having to believe students, even though "humans perform this same impressive calculation every day." But the reason it is so hard for the teacher is that," most of us would have touble describing each facial trait that conveys happy, worried, etc." An example of this would be a student said that they had not been able to do their homework because someone in their family died. Without the computer, the teacher has to make a decision whether or not to let them turn it in late which can be hard and is just a small example. With this technology teachers would be able to tell whether they are lying or not. The reason the student could get away with it, if this technology was not being used, would be that they could sound serious about it and they could have a serious look on their face because "most human communication is nonverbal." These computers could tell if that person is actually lying by calculating "muscle clues."

The last reason is about safety of students and faculty of schools. If classrooms were to have this technology I'm sure people with depression and other serious issues would be able to get the help they need. The computers would be able to tell "the percentage" if someone is severely sad or very angry. This would ensure that people that work or study in schools are so much safer than without the technology.

However, this technology is still slightly new and probably expensive. Schools may not have enough money to purchase one or more of these computers. Even though it seems to work very well it still can be fooled. The reason for this is that," according to the Facial Feedback Theory of Emotions, moving your facial muscles not only expresses emotions, but may even help produce them." Also the technology only has "six basic emotions," which may not be enough.

In conclusion, this technology would be very valuable to schools and classrooms even if there are some set-backs. Even though it may be expensive now maybe one day all schools could use this technology. This technology would save lifes and minds of students and teachers.     