In the article "Making Mona Lisa Smile," the author introduces a new form of technology, the Facial Action Coding System. The new technology allows computers to identify human emotions. The use of this technology will not be valuable to students in a classroom because it will be expensive, communication skills will be lost, and technology is not always accurate.

As it is now, without this new technology, some schools barely have enough money to buy basic supplies needed to provide a proper education for the students. If the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is added in the classrooms it will be another expense that is not neccessary. In the passage it says, "Your home PC cant handle the complex algorithms used to decode Mona Lisas smile." This statement implys that, in order to use FACS, the school will have to buy not only the software, but also new computers that will support the system. That is a lot of money spent on unneccessary items when it could be spent on the basic supplies that most schools can barely provide now.

In today's world communication skills are bad enough already, with the current technology that students are surrounded by each day. In the passage it states, "'A classroom computer could recognize when a student is becoming confused or bored,' Dr. Huang predicts. 'Then it could modify the lesson, like an effective human instructor.'" If the new technology is added into the classrom and, to a point, taking the place of a teacher, communication skills will be further taken away. Teachers teach more than just science, math, or english to the students. Having a teacher in the classroom also teaches students how to communicate properly with adults and how to carry on mature conversations. Taking away that human interaction will have a negative effect on the students.

Technology is not always accurate. If this software makes an appearance in classrooms and students start using it, it could give false information. The pasage states, "By weighting the different units, the software can even identify mixed emotions (as in da Vincis masterpiece). Each expression is compared against a neutral face (showing no emotion)." Each person's face is compared to the exact same neutral face, which will not be accurate. Each person has a different neutral face, so in order for the information to be correct, it will need to be compared against each person's neutral face.

There are multiple reasons that the new software will not be beneficial to students in the classroom, however, there are a couple reasons that the technology will be valuable. In the passage it says, "A classroom computer could recognize when a student is becoming confused or bored, Dr. Huang predicts." The computers telling the teacher that the student is confused could be beneficial because most students will not tell the teacher if they are confused, which causes them to get bad grades if they do not understand the material. If the teacher knows that the student is confused, they can take actions to make sure that they help them understand. Later in the passage it says, "Empathy (feeling someone elses emotional state) may happen because we unconsciously imitate another persons facial expressions." The new technology could help students understand and have empathy, which will be a good thing. Lots of people do not have a lot of empathy in today's world, which is part of the reason why the world is a very cold place. Students having empathy could result in everyone treating each other better, if they can try to understand the things that their peers are feeling.

Overall, FACS will cause people more trouble and headaches than anything. After considering both sides of the argument, it is safe to say that the new technology will not be beneficial to students in the classroom because of the combination of it being expensive, taking away communication skills, and not always being accurate.   