Can we also have a discussion about the 'normal' behaviour monitoring tools like Classcharts that are used by pretty much every school in the UK? These collect fine-grained data about behaviour throughout the day and link it both to the child but also the people that are near that child. It operates all across the child's school career. I've tried to opt my kids out of this but it's really hard. At best I think they have stopped logging their behaviour but they are still in the data as a 'network' influence. Classcharts used to boast about how their AI could do behavioural profiling but that looked too creepy so now they just talk about how teachers can use the data for seating planning. I'm pretty sure that I could use the data to profile a child pretty effectively even after they have left school. God only knows what happens to the data or how it is secured - the school literally don't care and think I'm crazy for even asking.
Just had a watch of their demo video. One of the seating plan sliders allows you to cluster pupils by free school meals (i.e. socioeconomic class) or EAL status. Such wonderful technology!
I'm so glad I don't have children in school in the UK. There seems to be so much going on that has nothing to do with education. I'm glad that when I was at school in the sixties and seventies in the UK none of that existed and teachers pretty much just taught.
How did this sort of thing creep into schools without anyone protesting?
"Staff using the app have told the criminal justice campaign charity Fair Trials that they keep it secret from parents and carers, and admitted many would be concerned about it if they knew of it."
I worry that our school system is now made up of teachers and support staff who are still absurdly undervalued and trying really hard to give our kids a good education but then a whole layer of management above them who have lost the plot.
>How did this sort of thing creep into schools without anyone protesting?
Apathy as others have mentioned. Apathy because people are tired. And maybe apathy because it's clearly being aimed at people for class and/or ethnicity. People tolerate a lot of bad if doesn't affect them in particular.
This is unfair for me to ask, but what are you doing about it? This impacts you, your children and your peers. Identifying and protecting your own is great, but what are you doing to ensure those not as tech savvy and critically minded are ensnared in this?
People need to push back on this sort of thing - if they don't, it just steamrolls forward.
I guess whether it’s fine grained throughout the day depends on the school, in my school they would only really give positive/negative points maybe once a week or less (if that’s what you’re talking about)
Yeah, the one good thought I did have when learning about this tool was "most teachers are not going to have the time to fiddle with this during teaching". But I'm sure there are several companies currently working on a way to do this scoring automatically via commodity webcams facing the class
