Originally posted by michael godwin on July 29, 2018
Hi everyone,
For my forecasting project I decided to look at the latest advances in biometrics in relation to education. The ESG Business School in Paris made news last year when it introduced technology that monitors online students using facial recognition software through their webcams. A high school in China took this one step further when they installed a surveillance system to monitor and report on behaviour in the classroom. I find this topic interesting and decided to explore this technology further for my project.
I copied this post to our new site as this is a huge emerging field impacting mobile technologies. In Michael’s site he links to a video on the “Smile to Pay” service from AliPay where it uses facial recognition to help with seamless POS transactions. China having a lot of experience with, and being a leader in biometrics is also something most of us are aware of, and some of us are somewhat wary of. I have lived in China and I feel somewhat able to speak on this firsthand.
My initial thoughts on biometrics, and the reason I posted this along with a fitness app, is that I think this is something that could be used in classrooms as a teaching tool. Teaching students about fitness and their bodies is something that can often feel abstract but shouldn’t. Students should learn about the effects that unhealthy eating, and even exercise have on their bodies. Using mobile technologies, we could discuss in real-time things like heart rate, blood pressure, blood-oxygen content, depth of sleep, etc. Simple, inexpensive devices (wireless sensors) could pair to the devices we already have to make these measurements. What a neat, and relevant way to engage with students on this topic!
Of course, some privacy issues may emerge and students would need the opportunity to opt-out, but I like this side of biometrics.
This comment merges ideas from my other re-post on the Fitness App JeFit and also from the wireless sensors re-post by Carla.