Proctor Track

     So, a student takes an online course. How does the instructor know that the student is not cheating on tests, or if it is even the student himself (and not some smart friend) who is taking the tests? Up until now, there were several options. One was to ignore this inconvenient fact. Another was to have students take tests in front of a proctor. Some colleges have testing centers where students go to take online tests, for example. I had to take a content specialty test when I applied for the NY State Master Teacher program. It was done online at a testing center in Vestal, NY. The security was intense. I had to show my ID upon entering and exiting the test, and had to lift up my pant legs to show I didn't have anything hidden in them, as well as getting scanned with a metal detector. Also, a proctor continuously walked about the testing room during the exam.  Now, a new alternative exists called Proctor Track . It uses biometric software to check on online students through such things as facial and knuckle recognition (that's a new one to me), keystroke and mouse movement monitoring, and monitoring if a student leaves his computer during a test, or gets help from a friend during a test. There are other programs that do this as well, such as Proctor Free .
     As you might imagine, there are some who are protesting due to privacy concerns. Students at Rutgers were particularly upset when they learned that this technology would monitor their online courses. Although there may be some privacy issues to address, I don't think that students (or people in general) realize how little digital privacy they already really possess. For example, I just saw a interesting You Tube video from the channel "Vsauce" titled How People Disappear . In this video, the host tells of a father storming a Target store because they had been sending coupons to his high school aged daughter for things like cribs and diapers. He accused the store  of encouraging his daughter to get pregnant. Interestingly, a few weeks later, the father apologized to the store because, in fact, his daughter was actually already pregnant. The store, through the monitoring and analyzing of her previous purchases, had used their own algorithms to figure out that she was pregnant (she bought things like vitamin supplements and scent free soap) well before her family found out. With my own students, they have not caught on to how much I know about how they completed their homework when I give an assignment through EdPuzzle (see earlier post). I can see things such as exactly when they viewed the video (2AM?....right before class?...), and how many times they re-watched any given segments.
     Digital privacy is a huge issue and is much more complicated than can be addressed in one small post. At this point, I have to admit to feeling somewhat favorable towards the use of technologies such as Proctor Track. The bottom line is that, in order for online learning to be legitimate, there needs to be accountability. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as it becomes more and more commonly used by learning institutions.