Cheating with Technology

Cheating with Technology Educators are showing serious concern about cheating in high schools and for good reason. Cheating has become commonplace in high schools, largely because students are using technology to gather and share information in rather innovation ways. Since students are a little more tech-savvy than many adults, grownups are always playing catch-up when it comes to finding out what students are up to. But this technology-centered cat-and-mouse activity can be fatal to your educational future. Students start to blur the ethical boundaries and think it’s OK to do many things, simply because they’ve gotten away with them in the past. There’s a big catch to blurring the line when it comes to cheating. While parents and high school teachers might be less savvy than their students about using cell phones and calculators to share work, and too overworked to catch cheaters, college professors are a little different. They have graduate assistants, college honor courts, and cheat-detecting software that they can tap into. The bottom line is that students can develop habits in high school that will get them expelled when they use them in college, and sometimes students won’t even realize their â€Å"habits† are illegal. Unintentional Cheating Since students use tools and techniques that have not been used before, they might not always know what really constitutes cheating. For your information, the following activities constitute cheating. Some of these can even get you kicked out of college. Buying a paper from an Internet siteSharing homework answers via IMs, email, text messaging, or any other deviceUsing a whiteboard to share answersHaving another student write a paper for youCutting and pasting text from the Internet without citing itUsing sample essays from the InternetUsing text messaging to tell somebody else an answerProgramming notes into your calculatorTaking and/or sending a cell phone picture of test material or notesVideo recording lectures with cell phones and replaying during testSurfing web for answers during a testUsing a pager to receive information during a testViewing notes on your PDA, electronic calendar, cell phone, or other devices during a testStoring definitions in a graphing calculator or cell phoneBreaking into the teacher’s computer filesUsing a watch to hold notesUsing a laser pen to â€Å"write† and send answers If you’ve been transmitting answers to homework or test questions, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve been cheating- even though it might have been unintentional. Unfortunately, there’s an old saying that states â€Å"ignorance of the law is no excuse,† and when it comes to cheating, that old saying holds up. If you cheat, even by accident, you’re risking your academic career.