The Daily Telegraph Editorial: Teachers have a new tool to spy on what students are doing online in class

FOR every valuable resource and timesaving learning tool the internet delivers, it also has an incalculable and growing number of time-consuming distractions. Teachers now have a new tool to know when students aren’t looking at the right stuff.

COMPUTERS and the internet are a fantastic enhancement at all levels of education. With just a few keystrokes, information, history, science, literature and maths are all available within moments.

Speaking of maths, it might be a fun quiz for NSW students to calculate the sheer physical space a library would have to occupy in order to contain the internet’s educational resources. It likely would be larger than the colossal Boeing Everett Factory in Washington, which covers a massive 400,000sqm.

Yet for every valuable resource and timesaving learning tool the internet delivers, it also has an incalculable and growing number of time-consuming distractions. Indeed, adults are just as vulnerable as school students to the lure of social media and cat videos. For adults, such distractions may only involve minor breaks between more ­important and productive tasks. For students, however, whose every educational hour is crucial to their academic progress and development, prolonged distractions can eat into valuable classroom time.

Students can’t get away with doing what their not supposed to be doing online in class anymore.

This is why NSW schools are now trialling a world-first program which uses colour-coding alerts on a teacher’s laptop when any student veers off-task on their classroom computer.

If this sounds intrusive, consider the dimension of the problem. Researchers have found that boys spend 55 per cent of their non-learning time during lessons on gaming, 25 per cent streaming videos, 15 per cent on sports sites and five per cent streaming music in class.

Girls are distracted 59 per cent of their non-learning time by streaming videos, gaming (19 per cent), celebrity news (seven per cent), social media (seven per cent) and music streaming (eight per cent).

That’s an enormous amount of education time thrown away — and teachers have no way of constantly being aware of exactly what their students are dialling up online. With the edQuire learning analytics software, however, it’s game over for gamers and the end of the tune for song downloads.

The edQuire ‘Live Classroom’ with images of the colour coding screen. Supplied

Six schools in NSW are currently testing the new software, following which assessments will be made regarding wider application throughout the education system. One important test will be how academic performance at the test schools is improved by an increased focus on appropriate material.

CAN YOU SOLVE THIS PUZZLE?

The following is in top-secret code to conceal its contents from authorities who may be interested in Labor senator Sam Dastyari’s contacts with Chinese political donors.

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FAMILY SHATTERED BY CRASH

In a mere moment, a whole family was yesterday left in such awful distress that it must be impossible for even the most empathetic individual to fully comprehend.

The facts surrounding the ­incident, inasmuch as police are currently aware of them, appear straightforward enough. A ­minibus containing a family of nine was headed from Griffith to Sydney Airport yesterday afternoon when it collided head-on with a commercial van.

A massive team of 14 paramedic crews, two helicopters and three ambulance chaplains rushed as quickly as possible to the accident scene and various members of the family were rapidly transferred to hospital.

One fact, however, is not so easily dealt with. A little two-year-old girl, utterly cherished by her large family, died in hospital following the crash.

“Just a beautiful soul, she is just adorable, she’s funny, she’s everything to her dad. Not only her dad, but her grandpa,” a ­devastated family member told a news crew.

“She’s like the most spoiled one in the family. Obviously she’s the only girl.”

Beyond that point, there are literally no words to add.