The Increase In Using Technology To Cheat

The increase in using technology to cheat

Cheating in the classroom has been happening since the first schoolhouse was built; however, it has more than doubled in the last decade due to the emergence of new technologies that give students high tech alternatives to looking at their classmate's paper. "A 2002 survey by the Josephson Institute of Ethics of 12,000 high-school students found that 74 % of students had cheated on an exam at least once in the previous year. According to Donald McCabe, who conducted the Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, study, the Internet is partly to blame. The Internet makes plagiarism very simple. In-class cheating has also gone high technology. Experts say students who cheat are not just scribbling tiny crib sheets anymore. They are using their cell phones to instant message questions and answers or storing notes on their graphing calculators." ("Eye on Cheaters," 2004)

Over the past decade or so, we have seen a huge increase in cheating in our schools. The introduction of the Internet into most homes and schools and other technological advances are some of the main causes. Students are misusing the new technologies to find new and more high tech ways to cheat. During testing students are receiving answers via text messaging devices, they are downloading notes to iPods and graphing calculators, they are picture messaging exams with their mobile phones, and they are even hiring look-alike experts to take the exams for them. They can use the internet to easily plagiarize a paper; they can pay a company to write the paper for them, they can even pay to use a prewritten paper from a database. The internet and technology are making it easier and easier for students to cheat, and as technology continues to advance, we will continue to see a rapid rise in cheating.

Many self respecting and honest people can be motivated to cheat in this day and age. Will the prevalence of computers, text messaging cell phones and even the ipod in the classroom students have technology at their fingertips and therefore the accessibility to cheat. The computer allow you to Google almost anything. The cell phones allow you to text another student or even someone sitting at a computer. The iPod® allows you to listen to almost anything including the speech you may be writing about. We all want that edge over the person sitting next to us. "Competition, though, is the real culprit. As the work force becomes ever more crowded and the number of college grads skyrockets, top educational credentials are increasingly seen as the only sure vehicle to success." (Vencat, Overdorf, Adams, 2006) The previous statement is true. Cheating today, to get the edge over another is like steroids in athletes. Instead of using the strength of our minds and thoughts we find someone else who did and copy their thought. "In a recent poll of 25,000 high-schoolers by the California-based Josephson Institute of Ethics, nearly half agreed with the statement 'A person has to lie or to cheat sometimes in order to succeed'". (Vencat, Overdorf, Adams, 2006) It seem that everyone is doing it. Multitudes of student believe the only way to make it through a class is to cheat. Don't read the book listen to, then listen to the cliff notes while taking the test. You didn't really learn the book you just regurgitated someone else's work.

Not only is technology influencing us to cheat, but the fact that we all think we don't have enough time does. If we look at an average day then we find almost every minute is filled with things that really don't help us get things done. I have to be home to watch..., or I got to get with guys to do ..., or somebody needs me to do something. Emotionally those seem like valid activities, but that is putting someone else's needs over our own. If you schedule out your day and know that you have to have this done, then do it. Waiting till the last minute just influences you more to find an easier way to do something therefore cheating. If we scheduled time to complete our own tasks like we do for other people we could actually do a lot more.

There are many methods used to cheat. "Some of the ways students cheat are laborious and truly ingenious. In fact one can't help but wonder why these cheaters don't just put the same effort into studying." (Clabaugh & Rozycki, 2003)

The most common method to cheat is with cheat sheets, also known as "cliff notes". Some techniques of this type of cheating include writing on your hand and in between fingers. Some people graffiti the desk with notes and answers to tests. Others have even used a nail or a sharp point to inscribe answers on a pencil. People can even go as far as writing on the inside of the bill of a baseball cap. It is also not uncommon for students to leave some type of note or cheat sheet in bathrooms. "Snappling -- in this form of crib note fraud students carefully remove the label from a clear beverage, such as Snapple. They put their notes on the back of the label, then paste it back in place using transparent glue. During the exam the student takes slow "thoughtful" swigs out of the bottle." (Clabaugh & Rozycki, 2003) Although I do not condone this, one of the cleverest things I read was people writing on the inside of a gum wrapper, or even inserting text on the gum package itself. There is even a template for a gum package at http://www.blurofinsanity.com/cheatingpage.html.

Other methods of cheating involve co-conspirators. These cheats can devise clever signals, such as hand signals, for the test or exam. They can also have people steal copies of the exam in which the answers were supplied in the review. Another technique of this style is outsourcing, in which term papers such as reports and essays are pre-written and sold to the students. We often refer to this method as "Paper mills". The following is a list of web sites that offer paper mills:

1. Gradesaver.com

2. http://www.academictermpapers.com

3. http://www.ezwrite.com

4. http://www.papers24-7.com

5. http://www.termpapersonfile.com

6. http://www.cheathouse.com

7. http://www.oppapers.com

8. http://www.termpaperrelief.com

9. http://www.termpapermasters.com

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