College students, how would you like to have your professor watch you study, looking over your shoulder to see how long you spend reading your textbooks and examining how you take notes? Sounds silly, and a little creepy, right? But thanks to a new technology for e-textbooks, it might not be so far from reality.
CourseSmart Analytics is a dashboard program that would allow professors to monitor the time students spend reading textbooks and look at the electronic notes they’ve taken. The system is still in its testing phase — at Texas A&M University in San Antonio, Villanova University and Rasmussen College — but it will become widely available in 2013.
The program is designed to give professors more accurate feedback on how students are doing. The information accessible to professors will allow them to fine-tune their teaching, identify and help students who might be struggling with course content, gauge student involvement with the textbook and evaluate student performance. “We have long believed in the benefits of analytics as a means to improve learning outcomes, increase retention and graduation rates, and help lower the costs of higher education,” said Sean Devine, CEO of CourseSmart, told Mashable.
While CourseSmart Analytics is not the first to record study habits, this system is the first making that information accessible by and usable to professors.
It’s probably safe to say the intention behind this technology is good. The uses of the program as mentioned above might make learning easier and courses better. But there are problems with this new service.
Time spent reading is not necessarily a good indicator of what is being learned. Some students are faster readers than others, and some students learn better through lectures or discussion groups. Students will also find ways to cheat the system, such as flipping the pages in their e-textbook at regular intervals to accrue a sufficient “reading” time — while actually doing something else. And a student spending a lot of time reading an e-textbook might mean the content is engaging — or it could just be really confusing.
There’s also a huge issue of privacy. Students have the right to study — or not study — how they wish. It is their responsibility to do what is asked of them, or suffer the consequences, like failing test scores.
College is about independence, about having the desire and will to succeed. And in order for a university education to be valuable to students, educators have to stop nannying their students. Technology like this is a step in the wrong direction.
(h/t Mashable)
