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Smart Kindergarten
A UCLA professor is working on set of sensors and data-capture applications to record a school classroom in intimate detail. The project webpage has more information; see also an older story. The professor apparently envisions actually deploying these sensors in a classroom next spring, but doesn't mention what school is willing to participate.
I'm a Kindergartner, Get Me Outta Here!
Starring MC Hammer
Vonal Declosion
Now will all know who's been stealing lunches. And who secretly eats the crayons and glue.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
We'll have statistics on which color playdough is the most popular, as well as the optimal nap time.
Wait this is America... it's for the children.
People think if they let fear run their lives willingly it will work out better compared to when governments used to do that forcibly.
Morons.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
"I learned that someone named Big Brother is watching my every move, and that it's okay."
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
By Christian Mignot
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
Electrical engineering Professor Mani Srivastava's seven-year-old daughter Megha provided the initial inspiration for a research project that may provide groundbreaking results in the fields of education and computer science.
Srivastava's purchase of a wireless educational toy that allows parents to survey their child's interactions through a PC spurred him to imagine the larger implications.
Along with his team of faculty assembled from the departments of electrical engineering and computer science and the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, Srivastava plans to outfit an entire first grade classroom - from inanimate objects like wooden building blocks and tabletops to the students themselves - with tiny electronic sensors.
"We want to use these devices in a classroom setting to see what we can infer from student's interactions and how they are associated with academic performance," Srivastava said.
The sensors are part of a new generation of devices that create sensor networks to sample physical environments and collect data.
The lessons this experiment may provide - including potential insight on teaching techniques, the speech of children, and the application of software and hardware in novel environments - have been deemed important enough for the National Science Foundation to provide $1.8 million in funding grants.
Students will wear caps with sensors called "iBadges" pinned to them, Srivastava said. These badges will track the location of the child and the physical orientation of the child's head, as well as capture their speech with small microphones.
Objects, such as puzzle pieces or board games, will be wired with sensors and used on task tables with magnetic systems under them to track location and usage. This will enable researchers to study the processes a student uses to complete tasks set by instructors.
In addition, a series of microphones and cameras will be placed at various locations around the classroom to further monitor students' activities. Srivastava said sound clips gathered from the microphones would enable researchers to study the speech of children - particularly those who are bilingual.
"With the microphones we can tell, for instance, when the students will switch from using English to Spanish or vice versa," he said.
All data collected by sensors, cameras and microphones is routed through a central computer system utilizing software called Sylph, designed by computer science professor Richard Muntz.
"This isn't the traditional kind of data - it is both multimedia and sensor data which is not very precise," Muntz said. "Capturing it and being able to process it is a complex problem."
Muntz said the program is designed to collect queried data from sensors, store data and query archived data once it has been stored. Most importantly, he said the program includes data-mining capabilities, which implies distinguishing patterns among collected data.
"Data mining has been a growing field in the last decade," he said. "Data collections are too overwhelming for humans to study so we are now using programs to help in the assessment."
Researchers from the UCLA Center for the Study of Evaluation of the GSE&IS, which assess the quality of education and standardized testing in the United States, have also been working with Srivastava to determine how the classroom application of sensor technology will affect student learning.
"It's like developing a new thermometer to measure kids interaction," said Gregory Chung, a senior researcher for the CSE.
Chung added that sensors would allow teachers to pay attention to the problems of individual students through the assessment of their performance in small group interaction scenarios.
"The problem for teachers is that they cannot usually pay attention to each student across all groups," he
Big Brother == Federal Government
:)
Little Brother == State Government
Kindergarten Monitor == Really bored prof with tenure
Space for rent, inquire within
"We see, Mr. Smith, that your students are fairly unruly in class, and that they often speak to each other in languages that your resume doesn't indicate that you know. Also, for the 14.6 minutes per hour (average, of course) that your back is to the students, a full 26% of your class cheats on exams and other work. We don't feel that you have effective control of your classrooms, and therefore are choosing to terminate your contract."
Thbbttttt....
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Well, there is one possible positive effect of this system.
Currently when students do badly on exams or assignments, they might miss some of the opportunities other children may have, due to being placed in 'lower' classes. This could be one way of watching how a student works - if they are able to come up with good things in a low pressure environment, perhaps this will allow some of the students who have been previously overlooked to have an opportunity to show what they can too can perform, but only in a less pressure intense situation.
Some of our most promising scientists could be becoming bricklayers because they can't focus properly when they're stressed out, and get bad marks...
It is bad enough that my 10 year old Usenet posts are available to my potential employers.
Now they can download what I did in Kindergarten?
--ee
Antiquated competence won't be a job skill forever.
Uh, it doesn't say anywhere in the article that this got a signoff from any human studies committee. Shouldn't it have? It seems to me that this study presents an ethical issue or two
Precisely why is it more valuable scientifically to track kids' classroom interactions than it would be to track the interactions of, say, executives working in a corporation?
My cynical answer: it isn't. They're studying kids because no adult would ever be likely to give permission to be studied in that way.
This is uncomfortably reminiscent of the "Fernald Science Club" of the fifties in which MIT scientists fed mentally retarded kids radioactive tracers in nutritional experiments. It wasn't supposed to harm the kids,and it probably didn't, but it was highly unethical anyway--even by the standards of the time.
In That Hideous Strength, one of C. S. Lewis's characters remarks on the fact that performing experiments on children is considered wrong, yet it's perfectly all right to put the children in an "experimental school."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
A UCLA professor does it, and they call it science. My Uncle Murray does it, and all of a sudden it's a felony. The Man offers nought but injustice.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
5 years and 4.3 million dollars later, researchers report their findings: that you can't convince a first grader to wear a beeping, faintly warm hat for more than six minutes at a stretch.
And how will the little darlings day to day behavior be modified in response to all this monitoring?
Students will wear caps with sensors called "iBadges" pinned to them,
"Mom!! Do I hafta wear the stupid hat? All the other kids make fun of us!"
as well as capture their speech with small microphones.
(sotto voce)"Billy is a poopyhead. I'm gonna make him eat dirt at recess."
And then the teacher may jump in..."Johnny...it's not nice to talk bad about Billy"
[Johnny] "WTF? Get outta my head, Lady!"
Objects, such as puzzle pieces or board games, will be wired with sensors
So the child cannot take the puzzle piece across the room and show his friend?
"The problem for teachers is that they cannot usually pay attention to each student across all groups," he said. "The feedback will allow teachers to better instruct their students."
Obviously. You're not supposed to pay equal attention to each and every kid. SOme kids can get on with things themselves. Others need to be hald by the hand. That is why you hire competent teachers. And pay them a respectable wage.
A competent teacher can recognize the attributes and students needing extra attention, by use of the best data mining tool yet discovered, the brain.
"This will be an example of how humans will use computers to create smart environments," he said. "The use of sensors in this manner will allow people to talk and interact with the physical world."
umm....haven't we been talking and interacting with the physical world for a few million years?
When and who is supposed to do this data mining? The person who is in constant contact with these kids every day? When is s/he supposed to have time to do that?
Or does she just get a report at the end of the week?
"Johnny doesn't like Billy"
"Jose' needs a little more help in English"
"Mary is a little behind the curve in motor skills development"
I can see a competent teacher saying "No shit, Sherlock! I see these kids every day, all day, and I know this."
Whereas in the hands of an incompetent teacher....Johnny, Mary, and Jose' will be concentrated on even more, to the exclusion of the other kids.
Kids are not data to be mined. Interaction, play, instruction are what grows respectable adults from these little darlings.
How much could an extra $1.8M do for one classroom for a year?
Kindergarten learns about kids!
Interestingly, it's clear why they're picking on kindergardeners. At age 7 and above, the rules require the informed consent of the subject. If the kid says no and the parents say yes, that's a no. And there can't be any penalty for saying no. But below age 7, the parents alone can "consent".
If they tried this on, say, teenagers, they'd probably be blown off, unless they paid out some serious money.