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61.9% of Undergraduates Cybercheat
RichDiesal writes "A recent study of 1222 undergraduates found that 61.9% of them 'cybercheat,' which involves using the Internet illicitly to get higher grades. Some of the quotes from students are a bit troubling. As one 19-year-old engineering student put it, 'As more and more people are using the Internet illegally (i.e. limewire etc.), I feel that the chances of being caught or the consequences of my actions are almost insignificant. So I feel no pressure in doing what ever everybody else is doing/using the Internet for.'"
Guess what: we "cheat" in the real world, universities and schools. We have reference materials to give us facts and information. Our real skill comes from how we *apply* that information, and separates the merely good from the great. Schools don't teach or measure that true ability, all they "teach" is how to recall facts that we can look up in the first place.
It's pathetic. We don't actually learn anything, schools are just a training ground for trivia shows, and give unfair advantage to people that have a better memory. Has nothing to do with your actual skill.
It's time to stop this garbage and teach people real skills and test to that, instead of making schools and universities glorified "Jeopardy!" games.
If education didn't carry such a ridiculous profit motive for everybody involved we wouldn't see:
a) situations where kids feel obliged to cheat or else their life is ruined
b) situations where the university passes you even though you know exactly nothing so that they can boast numbers
Education needs to be freely available and de-standardized. Exam grades can't and never prove anything. Like all restrictions of this kind (DRM, War on Drugs, Welfare), it just ends up alienating legitimate users, those who want to go to university to actually learn something and not practice 3-4 years of rote memorisation and regurgitation onto an exam sheet. When you think about it, the exam paradigm such an abhorrently ridiculous method of assessing people, especially in today's climate where I have a permanent connection to the internet, any time of day, anywhere I go.
We are, as a society, done with memorising trivia. The "expert" of yesterday is a relic, all you need is some logic skills and wikipedia and you can be an "expert" in something almost immediately.
I would recommend any who haven't seen to watch this video by RSA Animate on Ken Livingstone's seminar on education paradigms.
I make video lectures, try one. http://www.youtube.com/user/ThoughtSpaceZero
One of my favorite profs evar is my compsci professor. All of his exams, every single one, is open book. Bring your notes, bring your laptop, search google, he doesn't care. Just no talking to other people (the school doesn't like that). His reasoning? It represents the real world. He always says that your employer isn't going to slap you on the wrist for looking something up if you don't know it off hand. But your employer WILL slap you upside the head if you cannot implement it. So, almost all of his tests revolve around understanding concepts and not regurgitating definitions. He asks questions like "what does this function do?" or "what's wrong with this program?" In later courses our tests are more about programming on the fly (which is fucking tough), so the more you can "cheat" and swipe entire functions from class examples or labs or whatever, the better you'll do - because inevitably the test comes down to understanding how all the puzzle pieces fit together and why the fucking thing is compiling, running, and then exploding in your face. Fortunately he gives lots of part marks. Last midterm I got 84% for a program that didn't even run (thanks to a null index I forgot to initialize... ugh.)
The only downside to his approach (and he warns us of this) is that we should try very hard not to cheat outright and mass-plagiarize entire programs/assignments, because if he has to put us infront of the faculty judges - most of whom are english profs - they will nail your ass to the wall because they won't understand that programming is a cumulative process. So there's some give and take on both sides.
In any case, he's by far my favorite prof. Particularly for his little programming maxims... my recent fav: "Always code as if the person maintaining the program is a homicidal maniac... and they have your home address!"