Last night, PrimeTime Thursday (ABC, at 9:00CDT) had a very good special about cheating in the high school and college class. It is almost certain to be repeated.
http://abcnews.go.com/Sections/Primetime/ -- PrimeTime's home page. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Primetime/US/cheating_040429-1.html -- See some of the material covered in the program, including a clip. Not a lot was new. We have discussed many of the topics and strategies on TIPS over the last few of years. Seeing it all at one time, however, made it a bit impressive. Plus, watching students pay lip service to academic integrity and then turn right around and plagiarize on papers and cheat on exams was a bit disconcerting. Programmable calculators can not only store the formulas you might be testing about, many new ones can store text. (I would suggest that if you allow the use of calculators in your testing, perhaps you should provide cheap basic calculators yourself.) PDAs (and iPods, pagers, etc.), especially wireless PDAs on WiFi campuses, are a gold mine for the cheaters. But, then again, they can work ahead and store tons of info on most PDAs today. Then they really don't have to connect online. Want to see the possibilities? Try Googling your way through one of your old exams. Cell phones and text messaging open up a whole new universe for cheaters. Hell, I have to look at the pad to dial home. Some of these folks can hold the phone out of sight under the desk, call a friend in the same classroom, type out and send a text message asking the answers to specific questions -- without looking at the phone. The friend can do the same. The student only has to glance at the phone for a moment to see the answers provided in the reply. Do we even stand a chance anymore?? Should we even try?? The program reported the results of a survey of faculty. Half admitted to ignoring cheating at least once. It is beginning to look to me as if we are approaching the point at which anyone who requires term papers and does not check them through http://TurnItIn.com or a similar service, is guilty of dereliction of duty. Retirement just keeps looking better and better and better. -- ----------==========>>>>>>>>>> ��� <<<<<<<<<<==========---------- Sometimes you just have to try something, and see what happens. John W. Nichols, M.A. Assistant Professor of Psychology Tulsa Community College 909 S. Boston Ave., Tulsa, OK 74119 (918) 595-7134 Home: http://www.tulsa.oklahoma.net/~jnichols MegaPsych: http://www.tulsa.oklahoma.net/~jnichols/megapsych.html --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
