When a teacher fails to engage students during online Zoom classes, new artificial intelligence (A.I.) software scans the child’s face to determine if he’s bored, distracted, confused, or just fails to understand the material. What could possibly go wrong?
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25 replies on “Wake Up Kid! Zoom Classes with A.I. to Detect Bored, Distracted, Confused Kids at Home”
This technology has been required to be in all new cars starting in the next few years. The cars have to be able to identify a distracted or impaired driver and then pull over or disable the vehicle.
Thank you, Infrastructure Bill.
https://www.wbrz.com/news/impaired-driving-prevention-included-in-recently-passed-infrastructure-bill/
“The bill allows NHTSA three years to study and narrow down which technologies will be utilized in new vehicles. After that, all automakers will have to implement the impaired driving prevention measures within two to three years. MADD expects these newly-equipped cars to begin hitting roads as early as 2026.”
I posted about this last year and several of us are concerned that if there were someone trying to get away from a domestic violence situation? or something like that.
Let’s say a panicked women gets in the car to get to safety, and then the cars brainbox suspects she is “impaired” and disables the car? She’s doomed.
Yup.
You’re trying to get to the hospital because you or someone in the car is badly hurt.
You’re trying to get home in bad weather and are looking around, checking mirrors.
Also in there is a remote control provision for your vehicle to be disabled by someone else.
And, of course, Big Brother is Watching.
If it is an online class where this could be used it is almost guaranteed there will be constantly bored, distracted, confused kids. Online classes are not engaging. You are not in a physical classroom with live instruction so it is very easy to get distracted. Online classes serve a purpose only in the context of adults working full time jobs and trying to take some college classes on the side. Any other scenario they just are not good, AI or not.
Online video learning is only really great in short explainer videos that can be very engaging and explain it differently than is possible in a typical lecture (Such as animations explaining math concepts like 3blue1brown youtube channel). These types of things are typically too much work for an entire normal class so they just make great supplements to reinforce concepts. Typical classes should all be in person.
The privacy side of this is also a big issue. I’m certainly not a fan of this software and it analyzing my thoughts and feelings constantly. I have also used both Zoom and Teams a lot over the past two years for both grad classes as well as meetings and I have maybe turned my webcam on 3 or 4 times, each of them involuntarily. I don’t understand why you want a webcam on when just sitting in a meeting or a class just so everyone can watch you just staring at your computer.
Getting back to the main topic: This AI program…
I’m kind of mixed about it. You have to consider the fact that some schools are still using Zoom classrooms. I think that, if I had thought of this, I’d be telling everyone I know what a cool idea it is because it can help with a problem that clearly exists. On the other hand, I ‘feel’ like there’s something wrong about it, but I can’t really explain what it is.
I don’t see that it’s any more intrusive than a standard zoom classroom that doesn’t have such an AI observer. Meanwhile, as our our trio suggested, it isn’t clear how the AI’s observations would be acted upon.
I think that this program could be a valuable tool for the teacher to know when he or she is not getting through to the students and the teacher should then ramp up his or her efforts. The teacher should endeavor to get through each class without getting any signals from the AI as a means to improve the teacher’s skills. Most teachers are not used to teaching remotely and this might be a pathway to improve those skills.
So, instead of giving little Johnny a wake-up shock, the program could be used to give Mrs Jones a kick in the a–.
Spitballs? We used to make “Shooter Pens”!
Just out of curiosity … Do any of you other guys remember how to turn a Bic pen into a compressed air spitball gun that would penetrate a couple sheets of notebook paper? Those were great, a little hard to aim but when you got a hit it hurt. The only problem is that the compressed air made a little “pop” when you fired it and in a quiet classroom it sounded like a gunshot.
Or how about kitchen match stink bombs? The kind you made with a spring and a paperclip? You could get several match heads inside a cheap ballpoint (the kind that screws apart in the middle) and a little extra sulphur for a nice added stinkiness.
One of those babies would clear the boys restroom in nothing flat. Though a good one would melt, burn and leave a mark on the tile floor. Today you’d probably get arrested for attempted arson.
Tennis ball can mortars were fun, too.
Jah, and potato guns. My Dad and I made a doozy of a potato gun with propane fuel and a piezo igniter.
Nearly broke my hand trying to catch a potato we shot straight up in the air and was falling at terminal velocity. The Old Man just laughed and said “That’ll learn ya.” He was right, it did. Never tried that again.
All dads know that laugh. It is somewhere between “I did something similar as a kid” and “Oh, damn, maybe he is that stupid!”
Dissecting needle darts.
True story – In jr hs I was a bit of a smart-alec (still am, go figure). Government teacher was at the board doing I know not what I made a smart ass comment that I thought only those nearby heard. He wheeled in one motion and threw the eraser right at my head. I was shocked and didn’t duck. Got me right over the right eye. He was mortified. I played it well staggering around. He took me out in the hall and told me to go get cleaned up. He asked why I hadn’t ducked I said I couldn’t believe he actually threw it.
We had a good laugh. He asked if I was going to say anything to my folks, I said why, so my mom and dad could each smack me, too? I figured out later he had some real concern about getting in trouble. I also figured I deserved it.
I also remember getting in trouble at home when I had to stay after school for talking in class in second grade. I remember this clearly because it happened two days in a row! Guess I didn’t learn the first time.
It was probably only 15 to 30 minutes, but it seemed an eternity. When my mom asked why I was late I told her and had to stay in my room until dinner. Double whammy!
There never was a third time — lesson learned!
RE: Bill’s comment about using other senses in class.
HS Chemistry class. The teacher had taken a large block of ice and put it under a large bell jar and started pulling vacuum. We could SEE the water vapor boiling. He asked what temp the rest of the block of ice was since there was clearly boiling happening. The guesses ranged all over the place. Most pretty high. One young lady could not believe that the ice was still ice cold. So when he broke the vacuum I took her by the hand and had her TOUCH the ice. There was no other way she would believe it. She was a lovely blue-eyed blond whom I dated for almost 3 years, but her forte was grammar and writing and art, not physical science. She became an elementary school teacher I heard. Good thing, she already had eyes in the back of her head.
Mrs Ron was also a teacher for more than 30 years, though a lovely brunette. She always told me you had to have more than one way to explain anything. Some kids learn by hearing, some by doing, some by watching. The job is to teach all of those kids. Not just lay it out there one way and if some don’t get it, oh well.
She had no need for AI. She knew after the first day which ones to watch. Steve Green wouldn’t have had a chance.
Isn’t it sadly ironic that as teachers get less skilled at their jobs — Which jobs involve the science/magic of engaging and directing young minds running the gamut of human psychology and intellect every bit as much as they involve academic knowledge — Along comes a digital AI to (poorly) bridge a gap that shouldn’t exist in the first place?
That ai device should have been sitting on Jeffery Toobin’s laptop…no?
LOL – maybe Jeffery’s pants should have been on Jeffery’s lap.
Would also have been nice to have this bit o A.I. on the laptops of Jeffery Epstein prison guards……..
Alarms in the virtual classroom? I would have needed them while in school, in class. “Suzie’s hair looks good swept to the left exposing that bare shoulder.” Could the drill team have any shorter skirts? Wow!” “Does that ceiling tile have blood on it?” “Mystery meatloaf and Dodgeball today. Not a good combination.” “I wonder if Ms. Taylor has forgiven me for beating the erasers in front of the fan aimed at the door and then jumping out of the second story window?”
I may have had ADHD. All “A”s in class, all “D”s and “F”s in conduct.
In Jake & Elwood’s defense, The Penguin truly was up Sh*t Creek.
During the school year where Dr. Falsi and the teachers’ unions robbed our kids of a year of their lives, Little Bob had a garbage teacher, and I heard his experience was far from the worst. If his class had had this kind of AI, the alarm for bored kids would have been a constant drumbeat that would have been even more distracting
Great intro Steve and no you didn’t mess around with those nuns but we didn’t get that memo
Everyone had to learn by their own experience.
They ought to have a way to “like” an embedded Rumble video. It’s easy to forget, once you’re done, to go to the Rumble link and hit “like” when you’re done. Maybe I’ll just have to start clicking the Rumble Link on the video to watch them in the first place.
Couldn’t find this one on ComYOUnisTUBE … so …. well maybe the “boys and girls” line got it nixed, who knows?
I now always click teh Rumble link when there’s a new show. I watch it and comment here and also upvote the vid and share from Rumble. For some reason Rumble links show up better in my social media feeds than the links here do