Cel Phones
Cel Phones
Maxim #1: Technology will out.
The Luddite knows that he is steadily approaching Old Fartdom. Even though he is not quite there yet, he still hopes he is at least au courant and can keep abreast of the latest developments.
As always, The Luddite is impressed with gadgetry and the capacity for which people can find a base use for the noble. The sterling example would have to be the use of the Internet in order to view porn. However, the news that some college students are using cell phones in order to cheat has got to be right up there with the Porn-Internet connection. Next thing you know, we’ll put a man on the moon…we did?…when?
Cel phones now have little screens via which you can silently send text messages. Some students facing a tough midterm at the University of Maryland were taking advantage of that fact to communicate with students on the outside, who were feeding them the correct answers. They could do this because professors had the habit of posting the answer key to their exam on the Internet once the test was underway. No doubt you can see the big fat hole in this approach. All a student would need was a cel phone and a buddy on the outside with access to the Internet. Not even the proctors, who patrolled up and down the aisles looking for cheating, caught on to this deception. Thus, Maxim #1 comes into effect.
But wait, the answer key posted on the Internet turned out to be a sting. The Forces of Good triumphed once more. Not only were the morally challenged students caught, but they got all the answers on the exam wrong, thereby looking like dolts, too.
This was regarded as an example of the kinds of technological problems that professors are now running up against. However, The Luddite sees this as an example of how dumb college students can get. Yes, scofflaws have always tried to use technology in unexpected ways. When safes got too massive for dynamite, crooks in the 19th Century switched to nitroglycerine. The Luddite doesn’t think it is that profound. People are always thinking that they are the only ones taking advantage of cutting-edge technology but they aren’t alone. Look at John Dillinger; he never tried to escape the cops on horseback and look where it got him.
As far as the entire cel phone incident goes, the only question for The Luddite is what the hell cel phones were doing in the class in the first place. This seems like fertile ground for this kind of morally casual behavior. If anywhere a scheme like this was going to appear, it would have to be in a college classroom or Congress.
It reminds The Luddite of when calculators were first allowed during math finals. Teachers damned the calculator as an impending sign of the apocalypse and mercilessly mocked anybody who had one. Now that calculators are the size of credit cards and are being given away as premiums, they are being allowed into finals. The same thing will happen with cel phones, I suppose.
Maybe someone had already thought of this and it has been criticized as terribly low-tech and doesn’t really address the cell phone, but I would suggest not posting the test answer key on the Internet to begin with. It’s just an idea.
Maxim #1: Technology will out.
The Luddite knows that he is steadily approaching Old Fartdom. Even though he is not quite there yet, he still hopes he is at least au courant and can keep abreast of the latest developments.
As always, The Luddite is impressed with gadgetry and the capacity for which people can find a base use for the noble. The sterling example would have to be the use of the Internet in order to view porn. However, the news that some college students are using cell phones in order to cheat has got to be right up there with the Porn-Internet connection. Next thing you know, we’ll put a man on the moon…we did?…when?
Cel phones now have little screens via which you can silently send text messages. Some students facing a tough midterm at the University of Maryland were taking advantage of that fact to communicate with students on the outside, who were feeding them the correct answers. They could do this because professors had the habit of posting the answer key to their exam on the Internet once the test was underway. No doubt you can see the big fat hole in this approach. All a student would need was a cel phone and a buddy on the outside with access to the Internet. Not even the proctors, who patrolled up and down the aisles looking for cheating, caught on to this deception. Thus, Maxim #1 comes into effect.
But wait, the answer key posted on the Internet turned out to be a sting. The Forces of Good triumphed once more. Not only were the morally challenged students caught, but they got all the answers on the exam wrong, thereby looking like dolts, too.
This was regarded as an example of the kinds of technological problems that professors are now running up against. However, The Luddite sees this as an example of how dumb college students can get. Yes, scofflaws have always tried to use technology in unexpected ways. When safes got too massive for dynamite, crooks in the 19th Century switched to nitroglycerine. The Luddite doesn’t think it is that profound. People are always thinking that they are the only ones taking advantage of cutting-edge technology but they aren’t alone. Look at John Dillinger; he never tried to escape the cops on horseback and look where it got him.
As far as the entire cel phone incident goes, the only question for The Luddite is what the hell cel phones were doing in the class in the first place. This seems like fertile ground for this kind of morally casual behavior. If anywhere a scheme like this was going to appear, it would have to be in a college classroom or Congress.
It reminds The Luddite of when calculators were first allowed during math finals. Teachers damned the calculator as an impending sign of the apocalypse and mercilessly mocked anybody who had one. Now that calculators are the size of credit cards and are being given away as premiums, they are being allowed into finals. The same thing will happen with cel phones, I suppose.
Maybe someone had already thought of this and it has been criticized as terribly low-tech and doesn’t really address the cell phone, but I would suggest not posting the test answer key on the Internet to begin with. It’s just an idea.
posted by S. Olson at 9:13 AM
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