Creative High-Tech Cheating
An article in the online Kansas City Star discusses new means of high-tech cheating. Beyond the usual things we think of, students are also trying things like printing fake candy or gum wrappers that list test items in the tiny text where the ingredients would go. (That is creative!) As calculators get more sophisticated, they can store text information as well.
At some point in time we’ll need to start rethinking what cheating is. It used to be that using a calculator was cheating. Our kids are going to grow up in a world where they have constant, ubiquitous access to information. If that’s the world they will live and work in, what is the point of testing them on their ability to memorize a lot of information? One of my college chemistry professors shocked me when he announced that all tests would be open book. Why? “Because,” he said, “when you grow up to be chemists and get your first job, when your boss comes in to give you an assignment, he won’t grab all your books and walk back out the door.”