When Syracuse University freshmen walk into professor Jeff Rubin’s Introduction to Information Technologies class, seven small Bluetooth beacons hidden around the Grant Auditorium lecture hall connect with an app on their smartphones and boost their “attendance points.”And when they skip class? The SpotterEDU app sees that, too, logging their absence into a campus database that tracks them over time and can sink their grade. It also alerts Rubin, who later contacts students to ask where they’ve been. His 340-person lecture has never been so full.
“They want those points,” he said. “They know I’m watching and acting on it. So, behaviorally, they change.”
Short-range phone sensors and campuswide WiFi networks are empowering colleges across the United States to track hundreds of thousands of students more precisely than ever before. Dozens of schools now use such technology to monitor students’ academic performance, analyze their conduct or assess their mental health.
The article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/24/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-locations-hundreds-thousands/
More:
ReplyDeleteShe said she worries about school-performance data being used as part of a “cradle-to-grave profile” trailing students as they graduate and pursue their careers. She also questions how all this digital nudging can affect students’ daily lives.
“At what point in time do we start crippling a whole generation of adults, human beings, who have been so tracked and told what to do all the time that they don’t know how to fend for themselves?” she said. “Is that cruel? Or is that kind?”
Mirror here:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-the-locations-of-hundreds-of-thousands/
Well, at least the course name is appropriate.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, being present does not mean the students are paying any attention.
I read the article to see what happens if students don't want this, or if anything gets mis-recorded.
Interestingly, the guy who started this sees a difference between tracking and monitoring. I am not sure I do. Monitoring sounds just as creepy to me.
Carter said he doesn’t like to say the students are being “tracked,” because of its potentially negative connotations; he prefers the term “monitored” instead. “It’s about building that relationship,” he said, so students “know you care about them.”
I can't read the WaPo article because of a paywall, so maybe my question is answered in there and I just can't tell. And it's probably a dumb question anyway, because I'm sure every college kid in the country now has a smartphone—but what if you don't? Or what if you're the kind of good citizen who turns off their phone in class? Are you marked absent every single day just because this guy's creepy system can't track you?
ReplyDeleteThe article is mirrored here:
Deletehttps://www.seattletimes.com/business/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-the-locations-of-hundreds-of-thousands/
Thanks, Zooze—I don't know how I missed that the first time it was posted.
ReplyDeleteThe obtuseness in this article is just appalling:
"I don't want to be monitored all day long."
"But it will help you!"
"The app doesn't work properly on my phone."
"But it will help you!"
"I don't have enough information about this system to give informed consent for it."
"But it will help you!"
"Some stranger came into my classroom and started installing unidentified objects by the desks. How do I know they aren't explosives?"
"But it will help you!"
"You can't even guarantee the accuracy of the data."
"But it will help you!"
"I don't have a smartphone/I'm in a lot of off-campus activities/I study in my room, not in the library."
"Too bad. Get with the program."
Good Lord. This makes me gladder than ever that I don't have a smartphone, and I'm not even a college student.
Zooze, for the question of "at what point do we start crippling a whole generation of adults...", I think the answer is right now. We're there. I see a lot of students tethered to their phones. They feel that they have to leave them on during class. They're utterly dependent on their phones. And we're sending them out into the real world. I fear a bit for them. I also fear a bit for their bosses, who hope they've hired productive workers.
ReplyDelete