Lightspeed and the age of student surveillance

Goguardian computer photo

Photo: With the implementation of Lightspeed technology, some students are dissatisfied with the new software.

With the implementation of Lightspeed technology, some students are dissatisfied with the new software. Photo courtesy of Zach Carter.

It’s a Friday in Kenneth Seat’s AP World History class, which means it’s time for a quiz. The class is deafeningly silent. Seat remains planted in his chair. As he begins to release the quiz through MyMCPS Classroom, he gives a solemn warning: “I’m going to be using Lightspeed to monitor your activity,” he says. “So don’t try to look up any answers.” 

A recent change

The new software Seat is using, Lightspeed, is a newly implemented replacement to the previous GoGuardian software. The change was made in August of 2024 as part of an initiative to reduce budget costs. According to reports, MCPS piloted a variety of programs over the summer before deciding on Lightspeed, which the report stated would minimize costs while providing superior capabilities to GoGuardian. But has the software even been effective in the first few months of its implementation? The reviews from teachers and students have been mixed, with some even challenging the notion of monitoring student activity itself. 

Mixed reviews

Seat believes the software has clear benefits. “There's a huge temptation for students to look up vocabulary words or their notes,” he says. “So it's just a way to sort of try to keep kids on track, and even hopefully, if they know that Lightspeed is up, then that'll just sway them from looking at words in the first place.”

English teacher Leigh Tinsley also uses the software somewhat often. “I would say I use it maybe once every couple weeks,” she says. “Generally speaking, I don't use it every time the students use computers, but I definitely use it for quizzes and tests and those kinds of things.” 

Tinsley then proceeded to demonstrate some of the most effective features of Lightspeed. “Basically, the main thing I can see is their screen of course,” she says. “But I can also record the session, I can see their history, I can see the tabs that they currently have open, I can chat with a student, I can even turn the internet off if I need to.” She also says that the software is not much of an improvement on GoGuardian. “Honestly, I don't really notice that much of a difference,” she says. “I feel like the thing that was easier about GoGuardian was the class setup, but the overall feel is the same.” 

Students in Seat’s class tend to agree. “So far in the year, I’ve liked GoGuardian better because you at least get a notification when it’s activated,” Emmeline Brown, a junior in Seat’s class, says. “I like to use my personal computer at school, so I don't like having Lightspeed on my computer. It makes me uneasy to think that a teacher could be looking at whatever I'm doing at any time.”

Daneel Kutsenko, also a junior in Seat’s class, fully agrees with Brown. “Lightspeed doesn't tell you anything about if you’re being watched or anything,” he says. “So I might be doing something that's not on topic, but I didn't know my teachers were going to yell at me from across the classroom. It's like an invasion of privacy.”

Junior Mario Ben Arias used the same term when describing his experience with Lightspeed. “It really is just an invasion of privacy, you know,” he says. “But I do think that sometimes it could be good because it keeps us on track. Especially with AI, I know a lot of people who have gotten away with cheating because it's so hard to tell if something is AI-generated or human. Lightspeed could prevent that.” 

The future of screen monitoring

With some saying the future of student surveillance software is fleeting, students also weighed in on the broader concept of invasion of privacy at Blair. 

“I don't know that it's a breach of privacy, but I feel like it's kind of a waste of the school's resources,” Brown says. “I think that you should be able to expect that if students are off task, their grades will reflect that. And if not, you have to ask yourself: are you grading fairly?” 

In recent reading quizzes, Seat says he’s adopted a strategy of standing behind students to monitor them rather than using Lightspeed. “Sometimes I stand in the back of the classroom and I find that's effective as well,” he says. “I think there's better ways to [monitor students]. That's one reason I don't like to use it, because I like to trust students and not feel like it's a free state. My optimism is that in the future it won’t be necessary.” 

Tinsely shared similar doubts about the necessity of what she called “screen policing.” “I think it helps with the integrity of certain things, for example if a student is taking a quiz and looking up answers, those kinds of things,” she says. “But logistically speaking, if I have 28 students in a room, I can't be behind every single student watching their computers. And ultimately the question is whether I'm watching a computer or I'm helping students, and I’ll always choose to help students.”

Whether it will be necessary or useful to use screen monitoring softwares in the future will always be up for debate. But what seems to be clear is that the issue will always be highly contested.