Using Technology to Cheat

The Use of Technology to Cheat

“What’s the answer to question number 19” asked the boy sitting next to Laura?

Adjusting a seat or tilting a head to be able to look at a class mate paper is as prehistoric as are dinosaurs. Cheating has occurred since the erection of the first schoolhouse. However, it has since been taken to a new level over the last decade or so. That can be accredited in part to the new high tech alternatives that have emerged within our societies.

No more answers written on small pieces of papers with words so tiny that only a microscope can see them or the palms of ones hands fully covered in ink. These two methods are known as crib sheets. These methods of cheating have since been replaced with students taking a picture of answers of the paper in whole and forwarding it to any other destination of his or her choice via the highly respected and appreciated cell phone.

Cheaters are everywhere now a day in sports (steroids), corporate boardrooms (individuals), and in government. This is why there is no big secret that cheating is so common among students. With the new technology of computers it has become so easy to cheat that even those students who might otherwise toil with honesty. With all the surveys out there it is no wonder that more than 50% of students have cheated just in their college career. It could be said that as technology advances the vicious circle of cheating will continue. As students get improve their knowledge of new technology this in turn will make it harder for school officials to catch cheaters. Because students (cheaters) are able to go on without being caught they will continue to cheat and advance the technology. It is a shame that some students now feel it is Stone Age to use paper and pencil to take notes. Go figure and some students feel it to be very confusing to utilize this new technology and struggle to stay with the times.

Technology today is a very big part of a student’s life and unlike the good old days, is quite common and even expected for students to have their own cell phone or laptops in school at all times. The cell phone issue has gotten so out of control that schools are already moving towards banning them in the classrooms. Who can truly blame them? Not only are they disruptive when they ring but they also distract the student from concentrating on his or her class work. The younger generation has more of a problem with that today than do older students. Let me not forget to mention the topic at hand which is the convenience these devices allow our students to be dishonest when they cheat.

Cheating is no well kept secret. It is common practice now to {gasp!} cheat. Cheating has become a big business and students are willing to pay top dollar to pass an exam or secure the grade they desire or need. According to the International Reporter, an article written in March of 2006 tells of students in Vietnam who paid over $3,000 to be able to cheat on their college entrance exams. The setup consisted of students having to wear wigs and shirts wired to mobile phones that allowed them to cheat. According to ABC News, earphones, SIM cards and cell phones were also confiscated during that sting operation.

Aside from the aforementioned incident is yet another one on a more global and serious spectrum. Our health!! This occurred in India. Well organized around the world, doctors are now using an instrument called a Docupen. This device though small is a powerful scanner. This pen like object can scan one page in 4 seconds. The data after being scanned is transferred to designated mobile phones using Bluetooth technology and thus allows these doctors to send these papers to their contacts. This was part of the All-India Postgraduate Medical Entrance examination findings. This would indicate to me that quite possibly somewhere on this globe, people are being examined by less than fully competent doctors who are trusted with our “LIFE.” How frightening is that thought?

Students both young and old use cheating as a means to an end. They cheat primarily to pass the exam but more so, the course. They also cheat to acquire a good job or admission into different graduate schools.

One may ask why so many students do in fact cheat. This question can be a very hard question to answer. Everyone has his or her own personal reason for cheating. Some of the most common reasons that students cheat are as follows:

• Laziness or the subject matter is just too hard for them to grasp.

• Lack of interest вЂ" Everyone has different interest, and just like in life they have to take the good with the bad. A history major may not like math and therefore, feel cheating on a test as harmless.

• Lack of time. With everything that a student has going on in his or her life they may feel that cheating is a way for them to possible get more time to socialize or even sleep.

Students are using many different ways to cheat today. Students seem to be one step ahead of his or her professor or instructor. Although camera phones and text messaging may be the primary choices when cheating, iPods, calculators and now Bluetooth wireless phone-ear pieces are climbing the ladder at a rapid rate.

Students have become so complacent with technology that they have developed habits that they do not even realize constitutes cheating. Unintentional cheating is no less wrong as is intentional cheating. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Here are a few examples of activities that would fall under the umbrella of technological cheating.

• Finding an internet site and purchasing a paper of some sort

• When assigned a paper, having someone else write it

• Cut and paste any text from off the Internet and do not cite it

• Receiving homework answers via email, text messaging

• The use of the TI-82 calculators

The threat of high-tech cheating is so that The College Board, which administers standardized tests, advised high schools to ban cell phones from students’ desks during Advanced Placement exams back in April of 2004. Many schools demanded all students to have their cell phones turned off during school hours. Unfortunately, cell phones are not the only instrument used for cheating. Here are some of the high-tech tricks now being performed in schools.

• Recording answers onto a compact disc