Thursday, January 22, 2009

Cheating Goes Digital

I thought this article was worth repeating
illustration of a boy cheating with an mp3 player
Cheating Goes Digital | Edutopia
Cheating in the classroom is as old as the classroom itself. But teachers need to wise up to their students' technological savvy. Peeking over their shoulders to glimpse responses on a classmate's papers and coughing in tune with answers are old school. Today's students are cheating by programming answers into their graphing calculators and beaming them to friends, texting answers to exam questions -- or sending images of the answers -- and recording cheat sheets and playing them back on their iPods during exams.

1 comment:

ryan adameak said...

I found your article interesting, not so much with the fact that students are using technology to cheat, but the process that occurred during my reading. There is no question that students have become more savvy with technology than their teachers, myself included. The students that I have need to reevaluate their choice of sources for information pertaining to tests and quizzes. My students would rather receive information from their friends, often performing worse in my class than the one asking, rather than asking for information from those individuals who are proficient with the materials. There is no question that the landscape of cheating is constantly changing with technology, and it is important that teachers are aware of cheating methods in their classroom.
The process that occurred for me while reading this article is what I optimistically hope happens with my students. I intended to read only the article, and subsequently post a response pertaining to this material. As I read the complete article, I found links to related ideas that caught my eye. Going to the next link and reading the information only lead to other links and more information. About 60 minutes later, I was reading articles about subjects that were somewhat unrelated to the original reading. I really enjoyed exploring various topics and found myself confirming ideas that I had known, while correcting misinformation that I thought was correct. In the end, I had more questions than I started with, and found myself digging deeper into the readings.
I always hope that my students have the experience with self-discovery. They are told that their initial research with topics should lead to more exploration, and possibly a change in focus for their project. The difference is that I read because I was curious and didn't feel that I HAD to look for information, while my students are burdened with the fact that a reading is usually an assignment only to be completed with the least amount of effort. I need to find ways to spark that inquisitive nature in my students, so that they gain more from research than simply the grade at the end.