Technology aimed at education could really benefit an incredible number of students by making classes and learning (potentially) a more pleasant and efficient experience. Computers can't replace a really good human teacher, but they can make it easier for good human teachers to reach a vast audience of students. Massively open online courses (MOOCs) promise to change how education works, but there are some technological tools that might be missing. It's pretty straightforward to test students on math problems in an automated way, but grading essays is a much more daunting problem. There have been some calls for automated grading software
from various organizations (like the Hewlett Foundation).
But at the same time, the National Council of Teachers of English argues that computers simply can't grade essays
. Here are just a few more links on this debate over the use of algorithms over English professors (or grad students).
If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post