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Preventing Networked Gizmo Use During Exams?
bcrowell writes "I'm a college physics professor. My students all want to use calculators during exams, and some of them whose native language isn't English also want to use electronic dictionaries. I had a Korean student who was upset and dropped the course when I told her she couldn't use her iPod during an exam — she said she used it as a dictionary. It gets tough for me to distinguish networked devices (iPhone? iTouch?) from non-networked ones (calculator? electronic dictionary? iPod?). I give open-notes exams, so it's not memory that's an issue, it's networking. Currently our classrooms have poor wireless receptivity (no Wi-Fi, possible cell, depending on your carrier), but as of spring 2011 we will have Wi-Fi everywhere. What's the best way to handle this? I'd prefer not to make them all buy the same overpriced graphing calculator. I'm thinking of buying 30 el-cheapo four-function calculators out of my pocket, but I'm afraid that less-adaptable students will be unable to handle the switch from the calculator they know to an unfamiliar (but simpler) one."
I would assume most college level students can work any 4 function calculator just fine. They will gripe about it, but to bad. As a recent MBA grad who has traveled to China, I agree...separate the Chinese student. It really is a part of their culture to share everything.
Just let them use whatever they want. However they want to do it it's up to them to get the most they can from their education. It's not educators jobs to be babysitters. Besides we'll have access to these devices on the job so why not in school? I remember teachers saying we couldn't use a calculator because we won't always have a calculator on us in real life. Yeah right - I've had an iTouch on me every day for years and before that a cellphone which had a calculator for many more years. In case of Armageddon I may be screwed but on the job I'm fine
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Just do what you get paid to do. You get paid to teach people physics. Everything else is just horseshit designed to distract you from your duties. Just teach people physics. That is what people are paying you to do. So just do it.
If they want to use electronic calculators, let them. Until your Korean-teaching ability is better than your physics-teaching ability, don't hassle people for using electronic dictionaries.
Institutions of higher learning put far too much emphasis on grades and ratings and far too less on what they are being paid to do: impart advanced knowledge.
If you are worried that your students are using electronic devices to 'hussle' you into getting a better grade, then you are teaching them at too low a level. Make your curriculum more advanced and go faster in your lectures. The people who are seriously interested in what you do, i.e. the ones who are actually spending time with you to learn physics, will keep up. The rest will go do something more interesting to them.
Be serious; you're a teacher, so just fucking teach and stop bitching about people's calculators.
I say let them use whatever damn toys they want. Your job is to teach them, not police them. You're teaching college students - you shouldn't have to worry whether they're 'cheating' or not. You have enough problems with the day-to-day of teaching the subject matter - don't unnecessarily burden yourself with extraneous worries. Are they cheating? Who gives a crap? You know that they're only hurting themselves by doing so. Imparting knowledge is your business - disciplining cheaters is not (especially since educators are no longer really allowed to discipline students, anyway).
"It just doesn't make much sense that the FBI can use this equipment, but that the local and state governments, which the Homeland Security Act has acknowledged as being an important part of combating terrorism, cannot," said Howard Melamed, chief executive of CellAntenna. "We give local police guns and other equipment to protect the public, but we can't trust them with cellular-jamming equipment? It doesn't make sense."
"Whereas the FCC prohibits the sale of radio frequency and cellular jammers to state and local police departments, the Homeland Security Act consistently and repeatedly directs the Department of Homeland Security to take whatever measures are necessary to empower local law enforcement agencies and first responders in the fight against global terrorism."
It looks like those wavers you speak of are only semi-obtainable if you are a local swat team looking to do a drug, bomb, or terrorist, bust or some sort. the waivers are certainly NOT IN ANY FUCKING WAY for professors to block their students in a public venue and are ONE HUNDRED FUCKING PERCENT ILLEGAL in that utility.
Jesus, you trust wikipedia without checking the sources they cite halfheartedly?
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For the rest of the world, notes are a life saver. Show me one real world scenario where notes and resource materials are not made available to employees.
I'll take the bite: internal transfer interviews. I've experienced both sides of this at 3 different companies where the interviewee is already an employee. We ask 'real world' questions, no notes and resource materials allowed. You asked for 'one'.
I think there's a line to be drawn; and the place to draw that line is at the beginning of the 4-year undergraduate degree classes. Would you let a student in a German (language) class have access to a vocabulary list for a quiz on the poems of Goethe? Or a student in a political science class have access to a detailed history of the Thirty Years War for an examination on European interactions? Why should physical sciences and math courses be different? There's a few hundred ccs of grey and white matter between the student's ears. Let him USE THEM.