VIDEO: Paris School to use facial recognition system to monitor if pupils are distracted

With the temptation of social media and no professor around to scold you, it can be easy to get distracted while taking an online class.

Now, one school in Paris is making efforts to keep remote students on track with their tasks – an AI will monitor their every move.

Starting in September, two online classes from the ESG business school will be using a facial recognition program called Nestor to measure students’ engagement, and it will even give them warnings when they start to slack off.

The technology was recently demonstrated at the United Nations in New York, according to the Verge.
It’s hoped that the move will help to improve both students’ and professors’ performance, as it will give them insight on how student’s attention varies throughout a given lecture.

Nestor, software from LCA Learning, tracks eye movements and facial expressions using the computer’s webcam, and analyzes these features to assess the student’s engagement, valence, and attention.
It can even adjust the quizzes and exams accordingly, to address content that was covered while students’ attention waned, according to the Verge.

In a video explaining the technology, it’s billed as ‘the first artificial intelligence class,’ though the class itself is not doing the teaching.

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