Everyone has had that class where you don’t have to actually open the book in order to do the homework. If you are clever enough, you can get the basic idea from the discussion in class and maybe catch up later if you aren’t busy. While it’s certainly not the best of study habits, it happens. Imagine if your teacher were able to look up and see whether or not you read that chapter last night, or exactly how long you spent with the book open before trying your hand at the homework without finishing the section. A lot of us would have been found guilty. Unfortunately for the students of this generation, that is exactly what is about to happen with some new classroom e-books.
CourseSmart is an e-book retailer that focuses on added services for students and teachers. The software delivers the books suited for the classroom setting, and allows for both group activities and one-on-one help. A new feature being added to the service is an opt-in for tracking how students use the books. Specifically, the software tracks how long the student is reading a specific section. This way, if a student is struggling with a specific concept or if the he/she is just plain not doing the work, the teacher has the tools needed to better address the situation and help them.
If you can separate yourself from the idea that you are being tracked as you read your textbook, the service seems like it would be a terrific help to both students and teachers. Sure, you won’t get away with not doing the required reading, but the idea seems really beneficial.
It’s also worth pointing out that there are plenty of one-on-one educational apps for children that offer very similar tools. The Zoodles app for Android is a perfect example as it emails the parent every week with analytics on the behaviors found when using the apps.
Our kids won’t be able to get away with some of the stuff we did in school, but at the end of the day it’s hard to say that isn’t a good thing.
via The Chronicle
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