Life-logging is a digitized way of storing life-experiences in the forms of text documents, audio files, video and photographic material and so on. The two main purposes mentioned in an experiment to check whether a patented device called the Sensecam could aid users to a) remember and b) know their past in a better way than allowed or facilitated by their organic memory or autobiographical experience alone.

In my view, I feel that though life-logging may be successful in “reminding” the user of certain past events, it may fall short in helping the user “know” the event in its entirety, unless reminded along with graphical images-though that still may not really be the user’s own memory but a snapshot of an event they happened to be an inadvertent part of. The usefulness of this, thus is questionable in the second function but for the first, it seems viable where there is memory loss, a witness account that requires structuring or sequential account or in order to locate lost possessions etc.

In terms of educational settings, I feel life-logging may be useful to track information in an unadulterated way such that there is no human intervention or interpretation involved while the information/events are being recorded. It could be used to track bullying in a school setting; teacher-student interactions; surveillance for young children traveling unchaperoned when used with live-tracking.

In the context of my project, I feel this would be a good tool to record teacher-student interaction and to map and record the fidelity of the classroom planner being offered by my group to enhance literacy in second graders.

A second use could also be in the case of exam invigilators, as the board exams often fall prey to planned cheating mechanisms, sometimes with the aid of the invigilators themselves. Thus, such a device may deter such practices, especially if worn during duty hours.