ENGLISH TEACHER INVENTS

SOFTWARE THAT SPOTS CHEATERS

After many years of researching, Sophie Altman, professor of english in
the french high school Wix School in London, has now invented a new
software in order to spot cheaters more easily in class. According to her,
« It would definitely change and ease many teachers lives ! »

Three years ago, Mrs Altman started
analyzing student’s behaviors while
they are cheating and she compared it
with one’s that are not cheating. She
noticed some elements over the past
three years and decided to do
something with these finds.
But how did she create a software that
would recognize all of these
behaviors ? Mrs Altman simply
installed a little robot on her desk that
records the students during the
assessment. She put a special software
that would detect all the behaviors that,
according to her, might be a sign of
cheating (repeating the same
movements, looking at another one’s
paper several times, looking under the
table, staring at someting else than the
paper for a long time….) The teacher
can see the record in a screen, and
when the robot detects one of these
behaviors, it will emit a sound to catch
the teacher’s attention on the screen.
Then, the robot will put a red sign on
the screen, at the place where he
detected the behavior. After that, the
teacher will decide if the student is
actually cheating or not. « It’s very
convenient for teachers who have to
work during an assessment, they won’t
have to keep an eye on every students,
they will feel relieved !» She says.
According to her, this robot will soon
become many teachers’s favorite
accessory !
Of course we can wonder if this robot
is 100 % reliable and if it really works.
Indeed, it might not detect every
student that is cheating, after all,
students have so many different ways to
cheat nowadays ! Moreover, we can
wonder how students feel about
it.According to Kyle and Ava, two
students in Mrs Altman class, this new
robot put them under more stress than
before. « I’m quite stressed and I
always fear that the robot will think I’m
cheating any time I’m stretching or
looking down while thinking » says
Kyle. Today, we can assume that this
new software isn’t perfect but is still an
important helpful breakthrough

Solène Simon, The Daily Telegraph, April 2020