High-tech cheating

As long as colleges have had exams, students have found ways to cheat on them. Today teachers are faced with a difficult task, the task of stopping college students from using high-tech devices to tilt the academic playing field in their advantage.

As with any type of cheating, the cheaters always try to find a way around the newest methods of preventing unfair play. So, in order for teachers to maintain academic fairness in their classroom they must be aware of some of the newest technology trends, and how students may be using them to gain an unfair advantage.

First and foremost, the vast scope of information present on the Internet, and the ease with which students can copy and paste information to fill in large gaps in a paper has lead to a dramatic rise in plagiarism. One of the main ways to curb this form of high-tech cheating is through the use of an online submission system that has software to check for plagiarized material.

However, even with this, stopping plagiarism in research papers is very difficult and cheaters always seem to be one step ahead of any technology created to curb the epidemic. Therefore, it is more important for teachers to focus on stopping cheating on tests. Below are two of the most common methods for cheating on tests, and prevention methods for teachers.

Tactic number 1- reprinting the label of a coke bottle with equations or notes where the ingredient list or nutritional information usually is.

Solution- ban having any beverages in class on test days (this should effectively stop this form of cheating).

Tactic number 2- using a smartphone to look up test questions.

Solution- typically the way teachers deal with this possibility is by demanding that all phones be placed on his or her desk at the beginning of the exam

Alternative tactic- students can either borrow a friend’s smart phone and keep it hidden, or use an iPod Touch or other MP3 player with Wi-Fi capabilities to research answers.

 

However, technology is rapidly increasing and according to a Florida online newspaper, the Sun-Sentinel teachers may face their largest threat yet, in the form of Google’s newly announced “smart glasses”. These glasses would allow students to stream information about the world around them, such as the answers to test questions, directly into their field of vision. While these glasses haven’t been released yet and may not be for some time still, it is because of technological advances such as this that teachers must stay informed as to the newest technological trends, and how students may use them to gain an unfair advantage in the classroom.