Technology and Cheating

I just finished reading the article about internet cheating and I found it very interesting. The story about the teacher blaming technology for her student cheating is just ridiculous. If her students are going to cheat they are going to cheat. The internet has simply provided new ways for students to cheat. Honestly, if students cheat they are not very intelligent. Most teachers now know most if not all of the sites in which students steal papers and information from. Just because there is new technology and there are a lot of answers at the students fingertips, does not mean that technology is to blame for cheating. There has always been cheating and there will continue to be cheating. Teachers need to adapt to the new changes and find ways to let their students know that they are aware of the so-called "cheating" sites. What a lot of students do not realize is that a teacher does somewhat know after awhile what your writing style is and what
your level of comprehension is. They can probably tell when you turn a paper in if you wrote it or not. I had a personal experience with something similar to this at ULV. I did a report/presentation on a book with two other group members in my literature class. I did most of the work in the group, but one member of my group did absolutely nothing. I had only been in that class for a few weeks, but this teacher already knew my work ethic and when we did our presentation she pulled me aside afterword and asked me if I did that report all by myself. I told her that one group member helped a little and one did nothing. She already knew because she could tell that i was the only one that really worked on it. My point is, is that teachers know when you cheat. They are smart. It does no good to cheat because especially in college our professors know about all of the cheating sites. I do not think that technology should ever be blamed for teaching. I really liked that in the article it suggested giving open book assignments. When an open book assignmnet is given the questions are usually harder and require you to think and then there is no way to fake knowing and understanding that knowledge. If students know it is going to be an open book test there is no reason to cheat because you can use the book. A lot of students who do not like to study will think great now I don't have to study, but I myself have put a test on the back burner thinking that I would not have to study because it is an open book test, but it actually ended being harder because I had no knowledge of the subject and I thought I could just flip through the book and get the answers. I got a really bad grade on that test. It is almost as if you need to have really good knowledge to take an open book test because there will be deeper thinking involved. I also really liked the suggestion about the book reports. That was a great idea to sort of say that you can either write a paper or you can pick five from those cheating sites and evaluate them. This would really catch your students off guard. It tells them that you are aware of these sites. The students that are prone to cheating would probably choose to revise the five reports thinking that will be easier instead of coming up with their own ideas, but really it would take a lot more time. It would probably be a good lesson to teach them and they would probably take the other assignment next time. I like that we have problems like these today because it forces teachers to come up with new and better ideas to keep students from cheating. It forces them to use this new technology in a positive way and by giving assignments like these it is getting the students used to using the computer and technology as a whole. I feel that introducing them to those types of sites at an early age will make them less likely to cheat when they get into upper grade levels. In closing, I do not believe that technology should be blamed for cheating, I just think that teachers need to adapt to these new changes and incorporate them into the classroom rather than condemning them.