Let them cheat!

[Doug McCaughan]

Fear new ways

Knoxnews published an article today that can be summed up as "Oh no! That's not how I learned as a child. Fear the cellphone!" My reply:

If this is cheating, then let them cheat!

Our children are in an information revolution. The education system has failed to keep up with the wealth of information at our children's disposal via technology. The cellphone should not be looked upon as a device for cheating but instead see it as a reference library within the palm of their hands. Our children have the opportunity to consume information and learn at an unprecedented rate. We must give them access to the information!

What we had to learn by scheduling time to go to a library, tediously search through a card catalog, looking up in book or microfishe if it was available, they can do in seconds with their cellphone while simultaneously doing another task. Our schools should be about preparing them for their future not anchoring them to our past. Why force them to rely on printed material that is out of date when they can access constantly updating, current information by their phones?

I predict that within 5 years we will begin phasing out text books in favor of always connected e-readers similar to the Kindle. Within 10 years schools will no longer have paper text books.

Cheaters will cheat. The technology is not the problem there. That's an issue of morals which are taught to the children by the adult influences in their lives...the parents, the scout leaders, the churches, the friends. If you are concerned about your child cheating, look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are setting the right example.

Where is your library?

When we went to school, we had to memorize because the information was not readily available to us. We could not carry around encyclopedias in our pockets. Our children carry encyclopedias in their pockets. This should scream teach them differently! We were reguritaters. They are researchers. They need lateral thinking skills, problem solving skills, and logic skills. Teach these children how to formulate a decent boolean search string so they can rapidly find the information and know what to do with it.

The future is now

I am not suggesting to eliminate memorization. We still have to develop and exercise the mind. But lighten up on some memorization in acceptance that our children are and always will be connected. I doubt that our children will ever be more than 10 feet away from a connected device as an adult. That's no exaggeration. Examine your own life now. Our shoes communicate to our iPods. New cars are coming connected to the Internet. Airlines now provide Internet connectivity in flight. When I hiked 19 miles along the Cumberland Gap Trail with a bunch of scouts last year, I was never without a strong phone and Internet signal.

Lame excuses

I tire of the argument that all children do not have cellphones. When I was in school, in many cases we had to share resources from scissors to dissection subjects. Let them pass their cellphones around to each other. These children are collaborative. Adults complain of texting as if it is pointless. The texting connects the children to each other giving them a group mind. It is not cheating to reach out to people with the knowledge if the exercise is to apply the knowledge. Adopt our teaching methods to the available technology. Teach our children to work as think tanks and teams. No one succeeds in a vacuum.

Schools already encourage cheating

John C. Dvorak argues that today's schools systems are:

1. Designed for cheating
2. Encourage and even demand cheating
3. Reward cheating

Dvorak addresses that plagiarism is handled wrong:

The Internet should be a tool for helping students write papers. Children should be encouraged to rip text from sources and put it into their papers. But it should all be accounted for with simple citations. Lift whatever you want and tell the teacher where it came from, then comment on it—just as a blog post would. I'd even encourage kids to buy term papers online and add them to their own papers, with a critique of the bought item. "In this paper, which is sold on the Internet to students for $2, the author claims that the war was planned in secret. This contradicts the account cited in Wikipedia…." Or whatever. [Source, PCMag, Liars, Cheaters, and Thieves]

John C Dvorak and I agree that education should be taken to the next level:

Why are today's students forced to perform with 19th-century methodologies? Why do they have to write essays at all? Why can't they produce a PowerPoint presentation? Or create a video? Or a podcast? [Source, PCMag, Liars, Cheaters, and Thieves]

Very recently I argued for teaching cellphones and Mark Cruthers has posted about integrating technology into the classroom.

[Vic Spencer]

Well said Doug. The other day I thought I would spend just an hour to find out what I can find on the internet in teaching materials, programmed instruction on many topics and so on. There are also a ton of excellent movies with great historical, geographical or science content. One need not go further than a couple of Discovery, History and the National Geography channels. There is a ton of educational material I found and I even enjoyed using some of them. If one is willing to spend a bit of money, one can even find even more sophisticated educational materials that are super effective in teaching anyone. I found excellent stuff about math from basics to advanced subjects. And to learn a foreign language, Rosetta Stone cannot be beaten.

I was wondering why the schools are not using them more. Frankly, these are the tools that could reduce the cost of education while raising the quality and level of accomplishment. In Finland, the teacher can decide what materials they want to use for their course. And they perform better than any other nation. We on the other hand force teachers to work almost two times the class hours than other nations who produce much better scholastic results.

So it seems Doug, that we are not only way behind on management knowhow, expense budgets, and planning to reach a goal every year, but our education management totally disregards the availability of new, better tools that could reduce the expense of education, while increasing the knowledge of our kids.

The Internet has become an incredible source of information about any subject. It seems to me that it could also become the best possible tool for schools to turn on the students and their parents about what great future possibilities exist for the kids, if they just become interested and learn more and more.

It does make sense to have knowledge-based tests where the student cannot use a calculator or cell phone or the Internet. But in addition, it would be also interesting to give tests, where the students are to investigate something using the Internet in small groups, and report the findings a few weeks later.

[wilma mc]

Let Them Bleat!

“The cellphone should not be looked upon as a device for cheating but instead see it as a reference library within the palm of their hands”

It’s both, and ignoring either view won’t make it go away.

“Our schools should be about preparing them for their future not anchoring them to our past. Why force them to rely on printed material that is out of date when they can access constantly updating, current information by their phones?”

False alternative; students should learn multiple research methods and use different kinds of sources. Who are these teachers who prohibit students from researching current info (which can also become obsolete a few seconds after one accesses it, even if using a cellphone) and force them to instead use only out-of-date books? Not in my classroom.

“If you are concerned about your child cheating, look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are setting the right example.”

I’m concerned about other people’s children cheating in my classes (which is not the backward, insular, techno-phobic wasteland implied). I’ve looked myself in the mirror, and I just can’t bring myself to tell them that cheating is okay, even though others seem to have no problem ignoring it.

“I tire of the argument that all children do not have cellphones. When I was in school, in many cases we had to share resources from scissors to dissection subjects. Let them pass their cellphones around to each other.”

Have you actually tried doing this in a real high-school class? I have.

Seriously, if you’ve really done this and it worked out well, please let me know how you got the kids to not be worried about others having access to all of the stuff (pictures, etc.) they keep on their phones. It has worked in a few limited cases, but in my experience, it has generally not worked well enough to be a reliable research method for most high school classes.

I tire of being told (by people who haven’t been in my classroom) how backward I am.

“Adults complain of texting as if it is pointless.”

Straw-man argument; what adult has made this complaint, and why is this relevant? My mention of texting in class in an earlier thread wasn’t that it was pointless; instead, it was that giving students unlimited access to their cellphones during class will result in them texting each other INSTEAD of attending to the task at hand. Thus, my complaint has NOTHING to do with the value of texting and EVERYTHING to do with texting’s effect on concentration, focus, and learning.

“Why are today's students forced to perform with 19th-century methodologies? Why do they have to write essays at all? Why can't they produce a PowerPoint presentation? Or create a video?”

First of all, if today’s students want to be tomorrow’s know-it-all bloggers, they need to learn how to write an effective persuasive essay.

Secondly, when they write, I/we teach them to do at least some research so that they will know what they are talking about. That way, they won’t make the same mistake you did in assuming that today’s students can’t/don’t produce PowerPoint presentations and videos in school. Again, if you would just visit my school (and not just my classroom), you would know better.

Bottom line, Doug – as I said before, I agree with you that cellphones can and should be used as research tools. But when you create straw-man arguments that paint teachers as dimwitted technophobes who haven’t even tried to integrate cellphone research capabilities into their classrooms, and you don’t even acknowledge the possibility that perhaps some teachers don’t fit the stereotype you present, your argument loses credibility, even as it supports the point I made previously–that “students always need to be able to critically assess and utilize the information they receive, regardless of how they receive it.”

(By the way, students, that last sentence is an example of how NOT to write a concise sentence.)

[Vic Spencer]

Good points Wilma. What grade/subject do you teach?

[wilma mc]

Vic -I teach high school social studies.

[Vic Spencer]

Thanks Wilma. That's great! What are the most difficult areas to get across to high school kids in social studies? Do you have good enough teaching tools? What would you really love to have as a teaching tool?

[wilma mc]

What are the most difficult areas to get across to high school kids in social studies?

It varies by course, and social studies encompasses a wide variety of subject matter (history, government, economics, geography, psychology, sociology, etc.). There's something for almost every student to love and, depending on how well it's presented, something for many students to struggle with.

Do you have good enough teaching tools?

Although there are some things I'd like our school to have (a dedicated social studies computer lab/mini auditorium), I feel pretty good about the teaching tools that I do have. With the rapid pace of technological innovation, sometimes not being the first to get the newest toy is good, when an improved, cheaper model comes out afterwards.

What would you really love to have as a teaching tool?

More time. Among the classes I teach are AP U.S. Government and AP Macroeconomics, each of which is designed to replicate a rigorous semester course in college. However, we get only 9 weeks to cover what most high schools around the country get an entire semester (or, in some cases, all year) to cover, and our students have to compete against these other students on the AP tests while having had a much shorter learning window. We do the best we can, but sometimes it seems like social studies doesn't get the respect that math, science, or language subject areas get.

While I'm on the subject, I believe that all high school students should spend a year learning geography, a year learning world history, a year learning U.S. history, and a year learning government/economics/personal finance. I know I'm biased towards social studies, but I really do believe that these areas of study are that important.

[Vic Spencer]

What school do you work at? I could donate a 3 yr old PC to your lab if it helps.

[wilma mc]

Thanks for the offer of the computer, Vic. It's really not the computers that we need as much as the space for a lab. You don't have a large room that we could graft on to an existing school building, do you?

[Vic Spencer]

Too bad. I have about 250 bricks if it helps.

[Cathy McCaughan]

Wilma - While I have no doubt that there are tech savvy teachers (and students), I have been in classrooms and meetings enough to hear Knox County high school teachers say:

• "I don't use e-mail. It's stupid."
• "I can't use computers. The students enter the numbers on it for me."
• "They should spend the whole class time doing the assignment from the Microsoft text. If they finish early, they should nap. They shouldn't move ahead or do other things on the computer."
• "It needs some kind of software upgrade, so we quit using it."
• "Most of the students don't know how to create a PowerPoint. They only know how to visit MySpace and YouTube."

Variations on not using e-mail and having students do the work needed for Parent Portal have come from multiple high school teachers.

[wilma mc]

Cathy - Sadly, my experience supports your observations that many/some (and one could argue that even one is too many) teachers are technology-challenged.


Some teachers, however, are quite proficient, and are already doing the things that Doug suggests. I spoke up only because nobody had acknowledged that the proficient, progressive, technology-embracing teachers existed.

[Cathy McCaughan]

I know that there are teachers doing very cool things with and without technology. Between you and me, I think the use of the word "cheating" is confusing what Doug is trying to say. Is it possible for the teachers who don't like technology to team teach or swap lessons and record-keeping tasks with the teachers who embrace it? Instead of saying, I don't "do" e-mail, couldn't teachers have e-mail sent to someone who will print it for them? Instead of worrying about students using cell phones at the wrong times, can't they be asked to hold them between their feet or some other such silliness during discussions and test?