Schoolkids use the Net to cheat
p2p news / p2pnet: The British government is asking a university professor for advice on how to detect school children who go online to cheat for their exams.
“The move comes after report by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said downloading essays from the internet ‘could not be controlled’,” says the BBC. So the government has asked professor Jean Underwood of Nottingham Trent University, “to provide technical advice on how to detect internet cheating”.
Underwood, an “expert in the impact of new technologies on teaching and learning,” says it’s up to teachers and parents to show “plagiarism is inappropriate”.
The parameters of her study were still to be defined, “but she wanted to help find solutions ’so that everyone is reassured that coursework is valid, relevant and secure’,” says the BBC, continuing:
“Rules should be made clearer, Professor Underwood said. ‘We all reject websites which sell essays, but where does that leave us when there are so many help books to get pupils through their GCSEs? Where is the line?’
“And parents need to understand that by doing work for their children, or telling them what to include, they are not allowing them to learn effective research – an important skill for later life. ‘If a parent helps their child to carry out an efficient internet search, I personally do not see anything wrong in that,’ she said.”
Technology “could help ameliorate the problem” but is “no quick fix,” says Underwood, according to the BBC, which goes on:
“She said software already existed to help schools ascertain whether work was the pupil’s own. ‘It can even be as simple as typing a phrase into Google. If a phrase has been plagiarised, sites will bring it up. Software is already out there that schools can use, from the Joint Information Schools Committee.”
My wife, Liz, and I home-school our daughter, Emma, who’s nine. This means she isn’t exposed to the temptation to cheat because other considerations aside, exams aren’t even a part of her education, at this point. And they may never be. That’ll depend in where she decides to go, and what she decides to do, for her continuing education when she’s older.
But this isn’t to say the Net and Google and other web sites are out. In fact, they’re a major and integral part of her learning experiences. Every time she asks a question, we answer her as fully as we can and often say, “Now go online and see what else you can find”.
Nor does she waste hours and days of her precious time as a child slaving over home-work.
Underwood says the UK government “has recognised there is concern and will put down guidelines around February next year”.
“We need to think smart on an academic and technological level,” the BBC has her saying. “The internet is a wonderful thing with the power to change lives – but there will always be a downside.”
JN
Also read:-
BBC – Software ‘cannot stop cheating’, November 22, 2005
November 23rd, 2005 at 4:36 pm
“The internet is a wonderful thing with the power to change lives – but there will always be a downside.”
I hate it when I read stuff like this. How can universal access to information have a downside? The schools just need a new “business model”, like the RIAA/MPAA etc.
p.s. i’m worried about this software they mention… i hope they open source it! (makes me think of the florida drink drive testing business)
Emil
November 23rd, 2005 at 9:39 pm
At first I thought this was a take off on the Canadian issue where the cartels brought up that cheaters were associated with piracy. Or at least they tried to make that connection. I was thinking that here it is going to be played again with a slightly different theme.
When I finished reading it, it had by that time dawned on me that wasn’t going to be the case.
Instead, allow me to congradulate you on the concern your are showning for your childs education and the responcibility you have willfully shouldered to do so. Much of what is missing in the world is being demonstrated by your parenting skills. In this day it seems that parents want the schools to raise kids. That is until it comes to punishment. Then all of a sudden Little Johnny shouldn’t be subject to this.
The results of this attitude can readily be seen when you go into a store, there is momma looking over this or that while Little Johnny is running through the store, tearing into this and that. Leaving what was interesting on the floor for some store employee to pick up and put on the shelf again. Even worse the momma will get outrageous self-righteous when it is mentioned that her kid is out of control. The kid seems like an afterthought drug into the store because momma can’t be bothered.
Go to the theater and there is Little Johnny right down front with the rest, running around whopping and hollering with the other kids. Don’t you dare have the audacity to complain they are harming your viewing experience. Momma has no sense of what babysitters are for and it will be your fault for daring to mention how uncontrollable Little Johnny is.
After seeing some of this in action, give me the No Children area instead of the No Smoking area.
November 24th, 2005 at 12:24 am
Bad luck
November 24th, 2005 at 9:21 am
I think the only way to deal with this is to make kids explain their reasoning in their own words. Just like maths exams make you show your working, make all exams require the same process.
When you find a kid who can flawlessly regurgitate the correct answers but cannot explain why they are correct, you fail them. I wouldn’t touch the sites though, let the lazy ones fool themselves until they fail their first few exams in spite of having the right answers.
November 28th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
Bad luck
November 28th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
Bad luck