Schools are using apps to collect student data and track attendance. Here's what you need to know 👇
, the app aggregates the data into a point system that some professors use for grading. Hypothetically, school officials would be able to use the data to organize students into categories based on certain demographics, like race.
Rick Carter, the app’s CEO, claims that SpotterEDU is “not a data collection company.” “The only information that we actually get about a student is the type of device they have, the version of operating system that they’re running on their phone, the version of our app that they have, and then their class schedule,” he toldAccording to Carter, every school using the app has seen the highest grade point average in its history within two years of implementation. In its, SpotterEDU has never lost a client, Carter says. He adds that the company only tracks student attendance during class times, using Bluetooth beacons in classrooms, so “if they’re not there, we don’t know where they’re at.” He reiterated that the company doesn’t sell anyone’s information.Teen Vogue that the school is gearing up to launch a pilot project of SpotterEDU on campus. The spokesperson called the decision a “very small test scenario.” The app has already been used by the school’s athletic department for several years, but administrators decided to increase its use to somewhere between 10 and 15 classes during the pilot period this semester. Christian Basi, the media relations director for the University of Missouri system, told“They’ve seen some value in potentially using the app, and so they wanted to be part of the test,” he said. “University of Missouri athletics has done an incredible job with the academic success of student athletes that we have on this campus; they attribute some of that success to being able to determine when a student was under academic stress. One of the first signs of that was when a student starts to not show up to class.”, Matt McCabe, the communications director for the Missouri Students Association at the university, said the group is still waiting to “gauge student feedback” on the pilot program. According to Basi, the university official, student government largely has been supportive of the move. In an email to, another student government representative confirmed that MSA has been in contact with the administration with respect to the pilot and looks forward to further conversations about its future at the university.The university spokesperson assured the information will be kept securely and only shared with advisers or counselors. But Christian Cmehil-Warn, a student government representative and former president of the Mizzou Computing Association, said he still takes umbrage at the decision to pilot the app. “It teaches students [that] it’s okay for those with power over you to track your movements, which is already a huge problem in workplaces and isn't something that should be seen as common or okay,” he said. While student tracking appears to be less publicized at the elementary and high school levels, big tech’s presence in classrooms looms large there, too. In the 2017-2018 school year, the top five digital products used in K-12 classrooms were from Google; it’s a trend some call the “ .” With the popularity of Google’s G Suite for Education — a collaborative Google platform with more than 90 million users worldwide as of April 2019, according to estimates provided by the company to
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