Fun & Exciting Stuff

Jacquie Henry and I are having an online discussion about ITS in the comments section of her blog. I am just not sure about the web 2.0-ness of the skills she has there.

with apologies to Homer S. in the title…

CNN has this article on a PhD student who has created a teaching robot that will respond to your facial expressions.

“Classical ITS typically have a somewhat rigid architecture of ‘first I ask a question; then I wait for a response; then I talk some more; then I wait for another response.’ Facial expression recognition, I believe, will allow the feedback from student to teacher to happen while the robot teacher is talking,” Whitehill said.

I don’t know if this will replace a regular teacher or how it would be used. The kids would have more fun making faces at the thing to get a response out of it. Teachers would be turned into computer technicians and “fileclosers“. What happens when you get the blue screen of death? Would the robot call home when there was a problem. Maybe email? Assuming every parent in the district has email access. (Twitter?) I would happily let the robot go to meetings for me and grade anything they want to. I would also like to be at the first parent/teacher meeting with the robot.

I think it is a nice idea in small doses. I don’t know that it can replace a teacher and the many jobs they do. It sin’t something that can be outsourced or automated. Teaching is not a business or an assembly line. Every person is different and you need someone to adapt to that.

So, what is the future for today’s teachers, classrooms, and textbooks?

Olney felt that human teachers would always have an important role, but said the current classroom set-up faces change.
“The traditional model of learning is consistently shown as one of the worst ways to teach people. It’s much better for a student to have one-on-one interaction.