Using technology to cheat in classrooms - Essay Example

Running Head: Cheating Using Technology to Cheat in rooms Abstract Unfortunately, cheating has always been a part of academia. This essay is designed to look at current methods that students employ to get better grades, and what school officials are doing about the problem. There was a time when everyone who visited a bank, spoke to a human teller. Once the television was invented, people still had to get up to change the channel. If students wanted to cheat on exams, they had to write on note cards, or the palms of their hands. Now, ATMs have decreased the need for quite as many workers, people spend 20 minutes looking for the remote because changing the TV manually is unheard of, and student who want to cheat have a large number of technologically savvy devices to make their efforts successful. Teachers and principals claim that cheating isn't more prevalent now, it's just more sophisticated (Owen, 2008). Marty Wilkins, a 25-year veteran teacher at Milwaukie High School is quoted as saying, "Technology today does make it harder to keep on top of things" (Owen, 2008). Owen's news article covered technology-based cheating in Oregonian classrooms. Teachers at Milwaukie and West Linn high schools have had enough, but are afraid that there isn't much that can be done about it. They cite the reasons for cheating as trying to get higher grades, getting positive attention from parents, and trying to get into choice colleges. Still they have a message for cheaters: "Eventually, it will catch up with you," Wilkins said (Owen, 2008). Technology-based cheating has taken on a life of its own. When teacher's grades are done electronically, student hackers can actually access the school's database, and change the grades unbeknownst to the teacher. Some students use the cameras built into their cell phones to take pictures of the test so that students taking the test later in the day can look up the answers. Others text messages answers to other students in the classroom with them. Even with all of this, administrators are reluctant to disallow the use of electronic devices in the classroom. "We want to give teachers tools to move to that next level and prepare students for a digital world," Jennifer Nelson said (Relerford, 2007). Nelson is a technology coordinator at Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota. Eden Prairie has gone digital, using materials like interactive white boards and video conferencing. Nelson and other school officials are trying to figure out how they can best use popular kids' devices like MP3 players and iPods. Mary Slinde, associate principal of Hopkins High School in Minnesota, said a ban of popular cheating devices is not likely. "They're a part of our kids' world," Slinde said (Relerford, 2007). The state of Iowa is taking a harder line. Jean Morsch, a math teacher, said she confiscates listening devices in her class, because students have been known to record answers to test quest, then listen to them during the tests, pretending to listen to music Monzingo, 2007). Therefore, the schools are disallowing media players in the classroom, even though the majority of school officials admit that when used appropriately, these devices can actually enhance the learning experience. Tim Dodd, former director of the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University said, "[It's] not the means; it's the motive" (Monzingo, 2007). What is to blame for the cheating Michael Josephson, president of Josephson Institute of Ethics in Los Angeles, blames the lack of ethics. "There's a hole in the moral ozone, and it's getting bigger," he said (Owen, 2008). Josephson claims that 67 percent of high school students admit to cheating. He doesn't have any reason to believe that incidences of cheating is at an all-time high, but is appalled at the lack of moral code in 67 percent of students. Others claim that a lack of personal responsibility is to blame. After the Owen article appeared in February, parents commented on the story. Some blamed the teachers for not being more careful with protecting grades, others were angry that bringing the problem to light would damage the reputation of the school (Owen, 2008). Relerford's news article received some of the same. One parent claimed not to believe the evidence because teachers don't allow listening devices in class. She said her two children, students at Eden Prairie, would never cheat because they prefer to study. Erica Sanders, a teacher at Century High School in Oregon said that throughout the generations, it isn't uncommon for parents to enable their children's bad behavior. Josephson said, "We cannot expect young people to develop enough moral fortitude when the adults look the other way" (Owen, 208). The bottom line is that students will cheat if they don't believe punishment will be severe, or if they know their parents will, at least openly, be on their sides against the school systems. In "Cheating With Technology," Grace Fleming writes that some students may be cheating without knowing it. She said inventions like the computer make it easy for students to gather and share information is a way that may not seem like cheating. She cautions students that ignorance is no excuse, and that cheating, even unknowingly, could cost them their educational futures. Fleming also writes that what students can get away with in high schools, won't be so easy to get away with in colleges. College professors often have teaching assistants to help keep them abreast of what is going on, and to help lighten their workloads, unlike high school teachers. Some college professors use software programs that detect plagiarizing. Students can be expelled for plagiarism even if they claim not to have understood that's what they were doing. Her word of advice is that students should begin working hard in high school to break bad habits before they get to college, when the punishments are more severe (Fleming, n.d.). Fleming lists some forms of cheating: buying papers from Internet sites, sharing homework answers, passing off another student's paper as your own, cutting and pasting text from the Internet without proper citation information, using sample essays from the Internet, using text messages to give answers to other students, programming notes into a calculator, sending pictures of texts via cell phones, recording lectures then listening to them during tests, surfing the Internet for answers, breaking into computer files, and about another half dozen ways (Fleming, n.d.). All of these methods are likely to get you at least suspended from high school, and expelled from college. No one will argue that many ways of the modern world are attractive. Computers, printers, digital cameras, and the like make life simpler in innumerable ways. Using these advances for ill-gotten gain, though, sometimes gives technology a bad rap. Cheating doesn't make anyone smarter, and sooner or later there will be consequences for negative actions and behaviors. At 67 percent, the vast majority of students are cheating. Punishments range from doing nothing, because the cheating is hard to prove, to being expelled from school. When parents enable their children by disbelieving hard evidence, and school officials refuse to remove certain devices from the classroom, it makes cheating easy, and decreases the likelihood that attempts to cheat will go away. Somehow, students are going to have to find a way to guide their own moral compasses. Otherwise, before too long, the consequences may be more than they can handle. References Fleming, Grace (n.d.). Cheating with technology. < http://homeworktips.about.com/od/cheating/a/echeating.htm > Monzingo, Monica (2007, October). Cheating goes high-tech. Good Housekeeping 244(10), 125. Retrieved 26 March 2008 from Academic Search Premier database. Owen, Wendy (2008, February 01). At school, a high-tech low road. The Oregonian. Retrieved 26 March 2008 from Newspaper Source database. Relerford, Patrice (2007, May 07). The tools to learn - or to cheat. Star Tribute (Minneapolis, MN). Retrieved 26 March 2008 from Newspaper Source database. Read More