Cheating is not a new problem, but students and teachers are finding that cheating on tests rises with use of technology.
With smartphones available for school work, text messages have replaced note passing. Also, students can look up answers on smartphones almost instantly, or peek at their saved note file.
Instructions are on YouTube for making cheat sheets by digitally scanning the wrapper of a soda bottle and replacing the nutrition information with test answers.
Cheating is also a business. Companies exist online that will overnight a kit which includes wireless earbuds, allowing the student to secretly phone a friend during a test. And there are many sites online that offer top write essays for a fee. Students also can use built in thesaurus software as a tool to cover plagerized paragraphs when using word processing programs.
There are consequences to the easy access to information: It’s eroded students’ understanding of how to use technology responsibly, say some Shore area educators. But as rule-breaking becomes more prevalent, teachers also are developing their own arsenal of tools to combat would-be cheaters, educators say.
“We are living in a copy-and-paste society,” said Cindy Terebush, director of schools for Temple Shalom in Aberdeen. “Plagiarism has become so easy…. What they’re really doing is stealing, and they don’t see it that way.”
Amanda Earle, 21, of Jackson would agree. Earle, who is now studying at Georgian Court University to become a teacher, remembers feeling cheated as she watched classmates look up answers on their smartphones when she was a student at Jackson Liberty High School.
“I would personally think: ‘Wow, this test or exam is extremely hard,’… but other students would do well because they would have all the answers in the palm of their hands,” Earle recalled.
Cheaters’ high scores would make it difficult to convince a teacher that a test was too difficult, she said.