Kids cheating with tech but are schools cheating kids?

The results of a survey showing that 35 percent of middle school and high school students with cell phones have used them to cheat at school is indeed alarming. And perhaps more alarming is the finding that nearly a quarter of the students don't even think it's cheating.

Cheating is cheating regardless of whether you use technology or old-fashioned paper notes. I'm appalled that kids may be using technology to cheat in school, but I'm just as appalled at how schools are cheating kids when it comes to technology.

But in addition to admonishing kids about why it's wrong to cheat, perhaps it's also time to rethink what it means to evaluate students in the age of the Internet and omnipresent mobile devices.

(Credit: Common Sense Media)

The survey, which was conducted by Benenson Strategy Group for Common Sense Media, found that "41 percent (of seventh- to 12th-graders) say that storing notes on a cell phone to access during tests is cheating and a serious offense, while 23 percent don't think it's cheating at all." Similarly, 45 percent say "texting friends about answers during a test" is cheating, while 20 percent do not consider it cheating. More than a third (36 percent) said that downloading a paper from the Internet to turn in was not a serious cheating offense and nearly one-fifth didn't consider it to be cheating at all. Just more than half the kids admitted to using the Internet for some form of cheating,

As a parent and former educator, I am strongly opposed to any type of cheating. And there is no way that anyone--not just students--should get away with claiming authorship on a paper they didn't write. But this survey might also present an opportunity for educators to re-evaluate the type of tests they're giving. I think there is a role for tests that measure a student's ability to quickly acquire and interpret information through mobile devices, even if they know nothing about the subject prior to sitting down for the test.

I'm not making a universal declaration that every kid should be issued a smart phone or iPod Touch to help them with every test they take. But I do think that the emergence of cheap mobile technology and--eventually--omnipresent connectivity offer educators an opportunity to incorporate the technology into their classrooms and even testing.

As Peggy Sheehy, a library media specialist from Suffern, N.Y., put it: "We can't teach 21st century literacy and assess with 19th century methodology. We have to look at what we really need students to be able to do when they leave us" and we must ask, "what is my student learning outside of school and how can I get them just as engaged?"

Right now, it's a valid point to say that letting kids access mobile devices may discriminate against those who can't afford the phones or the service. Yet that will change, just as it did with electronic calculators, as these devices become even more affordable, especially if students can access free wireless networks at school.

In the work force, what's important in most situations is not so much the facts you can pull out of your head but your ability to acquire information when you need it and--most importantly--your ability to make sense of it.

I'm not saying being able to recall facts from memory is never important. I have to do that nearly every day when I go on live radio. And I often use the Internet to acquire facts only moments before the broadcast and have occasionally had to look up a fact while taking on live radio. What's most important is not my regurgitation of the facts but my interpretation. The ability to put things into context is hard to measure with the types of multiple choice tests that are commonly used in schools.

Of course, the ability to use a search engine is no substitute for kids learning how to critically evaluate the information they do acquire. Knowing how to judge the authority of a source and being able to interpret the meaning of information--in the long run--is more important than the ability to remember it.

A few years ago I participated in a conference with educators from the U.S. and Japan. Both groups had their gripes about their country's educational system, but what I heard from several of my Japanese colleagues was the concern that their system concentrated too much on rote memory and not enough on creativity and critical thinking.

David Ricky Matsumoto, author of "The New Japan," said the same thing those educators told me: "In my experience," he wrote in the book, "the typical Japanese student excels at learning facts and figures. "...what many Japanese students lack is the ability to think about problems creatively, critically, and autonomously."

So, while we should continue to discourage cheating of any kind, we should also encourage schools to find creative ways to use technology, including cell phones, in the learning process and in the testing process. It's called adaptation. And besides, progress should always be a part of a progressive educational system.

This post is adapted from a column that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News.

[sbalkam]

On a trip to London last week, I learned of charter schools in the UK which hand out specially adapted iPhones to all their students and insist that they bring them to school for work in the classrooms and to take them home with them for homework. Seems to me to be where we're heading rather than unworkable blanket bans on the technologies kids bring to schools. Stephen Balkam, Family Online Safety Instutute

[Random_Walk]

There are of course a couple of very simple remedies for this...

* ban the very existence of cell phones in a classroom. All students get to leave all materials at the back of the room. any student caught w/ a cell phone flunks automatically.

* if/when possible, don't rely on paper tests for the whole test score. I used to teach for a living, and found that the best metrics for grading success or failure wasn't in the paper test, but to do it in stages. Now mind you this is CompSci, but I almost always gave a paper test, followed by a pair of practical tests. The practical tests? First, build a system/program/network that does X, Y, and Z within a short time frame. If you passed, you got to go away for awhile. Second, upon your return, you would troubleshoot problems induced on the same system, but also in a short time frame.

It practically eliminated cheating, since no amount of notation will tell you if there's a clear strip of tape on the network card contacts, or if there's a typo buried in the source code, or if you failed to secure your system enough to prevent a typical bit of malware to pop in and make subtle but deep changes that you had to hunt down and report on (with deductions for each one missed).

I didn't even care if the students used Google to hunt down troubleshooting tips and tricks, since the clock was ticking, and their grades depended on being fast but thorough. I basically emulated the real world... if they survived the emulation, odds were good they would survive the real thing later down the road.

Now this is obviously not always practical for all tests, but it is possible on many of them.

[fazalmajid]

Only lazy teachers rely on multiple-choice questionnaires to grade their students, in a travesty of evaluation. Unfortunately, this is the rule rather than the exception in the US.

When I was in school in France, we would have to turn in proper papers (including maths papers with proofs and all) and essays, and the teachers would go over them individually. Sure, it takes time, but it makes fore a much higher standard of education.

[Jive Turkey]

I'm always against cheating, but sometimes exams are harder than the real world and that's just ridiculous. I'm doing an IT course right now and we're expected to memorise lists of information that my lecturer admits no-one in the industry knows these off the top of their head. Things like IRQs, which are important to understand, but to be able to list them all is unnecessary when it takes 10 seconds to look them up on the Internet.

[solitare_pax]

Perhaps in the higher grades, tech should be permitted on a limited basis, but in the lower grades, students need to learn how to memorize things, and learn how to apply themselves to the challenges posed in the classroom - and in real life. Otherwise in time, people will forget how to do common things, like read, write and arithmetic, just as many people in modern societies don't know how to raise food or sew.

If people become too dependent on tech, what will they do when it fails or becomes unavailable? There are enough sci-fi movies out there to show the possibilities.

[Jwdodson]

These are two separate issues. Cheating is cheating, no matter whether you look on your classmates paper or if you look on mobile device. Do not excuse it. Do not confuse the issue by saying we should be testing this way or that way. That being said analysis is of course extremely important. However one must have a modicum of facts in order to even begin to analyze. It is extremely helpful to know a little something before you go looking for more information. Retrieval and evaluation of information is important and should be taught and tested. Cheating is inexcusable no matter what level you are operating in.

[kimberleymyers]

Having students work out there responses is one way to avoid the texting of answers from one student to another. As a math teacher, every one of my assessments requires (for points) the entire process to be written out on paper. This would be very difficult to do via cell phone.

However, my school has a policy that has the student put their cell phone on the desk or table during a quiz or test.

I agree with this article, however, that we are cheating the students by not using technology better. I am currently involved in a masters program, integrating technology into the classroom, which will help me learn how to "do different things" using technology. Todays students definately need to be able to not only memorize certain facts, but also know how to find them readily using technology.