Often times in lecture halls, during those psychology 101 courses, kids will sometimes listen to their iPods
while the lecture is going on. This is often possible because slides
and PowerPoint are used and it is much more entertaining to listen to
Nirvana than a lecture. In this article I found on Yahoo, high schools
have started banningiPods because of the way kids can use them to cheat. Since the ear piece is
so small to begin with, hiding the wire and earpiece is something that
can be easily done: "officials realized some students were downloading
formulas and other material onto the players."-- Clearly this is the
problem.
I think the key is that eventually, "each district will
have a policy in place for technology — it keeps a lot of the problems
down." Technology clearly has its positives and negatives. Cheating is
now one of the negatives with the iPod. The result has to be limitations on when they can be used. They should in no way be banned, just regulated.
Here is the link if any of you want to check it out. What do you guys think
of this problem? If you read the article, take a look at what Kelsey
Nelson had to say--Quite interesting and I'd be curious to hear your
opinion.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070427/ap_on_hi_te/ipod_cheating
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5 comments:
Willis you have to see the blog I did on this article. I kind of looked at it in a different light. I think that it's not so much the cheating that administrators and teachers should be looking at, but rather how they can use the iPods in the classroom constructively.
If you noticed the last three paragraphs of that article gave a positive slant on the article. Of course, by placing them at the end of the article it makes them appear as though they aren't of importance, but I believe they are. In this instance, the journalist was at fault for not correctly balancing her article. Read my blog and you'll be able to see what I mean.
Barb, nice analysis of the article. you were using your critical thinking and "reading the media" the way we are learning from the Hobbs book and the questions from the ProjectLookSharp. 3 cheers for noticing that the journalist didn't balance out the article and she placed the positives at the bottom of the piece. NOw we just need to get our students to read the media the way you just did.
BUt I agree with you Barb that ipods can and should be used in the classroom in constructive ways, and maybe limited, but not banned in schools! The fact that these kids are cheating and downloading cheat codes into their ipods just shows how innovative and tech-savvy they are!!! They should be praised for their innovation, yet instead we are punishing them for using the new wave of technology which will soon be our future. I think students are way ahead of the game than teachers and they are going to be leaving us in the dust if we don't hop on this bandwagon!
Hi Willis, can you make your blog link live?
I agree w/Barb and Charity here. See my comment on the course blog discussion.
Willis,
I can understand why teachers would liek to ban ipods. When I was student teaching, some students would take them out and listen to them during group activites or class discussion. This really frustrated me.
However, now that I see the benefits of using them in class, I would try to incorporate theminto lessons. The cheating issue could occur, but I feel that if we make ipods accepted students may not need to sneak around with them
I agree... even observing in a classroom (not even teaching!) I've not only noticed students sneaking a listen to an iPod, but I've gotten mad at them too! It's so disresepctful!
That aside, I dont think the problem is iPods. Could it be that the tests are so impossibly BORING and irrelevant that students just can't figure them out? Are they required to MEMORIZE everything??
In today's technological world, those formulas that students are "cheating" with are readily available with a few clicks. Shouldn't we be focusing on how to get our students to APPLY those formulas (or definitions, facts, etc.) to the numbers or whatever else it is that they're being tested on?
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