Hi guys,
I have a friend who went to SFU Surrey for the Tech One program. The Tech One program is an introduction to computers in general. It covers programming, math, digital media, communication in a text based medium and more. While enrolled in this, my friend found it very easy to cheat on much of her school work. The following is a first-person account written from my notes on my interview with her.
I'm not a cheater. I don't believe in it. I've always found that I can do my own work better than other people can and I actually like doing it. That was true before I went to SFU Surrey. There, everyone cheated. It was never cheating on anything major...well maybe a couple of things.
It started with this test we were forced to take every week for our "English" class. We were to go online and take this 10 question test. The thing was you were allowed to retake the test as many times as you wanted until you got them all right. What we would all do was sit around in a computer lab and make an answer key to this test and email it around to everyone in class. It was an effort to actually make it but it helped a lot of people and I was always gratefull when I got emailed it so writing it every now and then didn't bother me.
The next instance of cheating I was involved in was in my programming class. In this class we had two lectures and then, every week we had a practical test where we had to show a TA that we could do what was discussed in lecture. In the practical test, we were in a computer lab with 30 other people and the computers had the internet. What happened was we'd email around the correct code then simply copy and paste it from our hotmail into python. To avoid detection we would ctrl+C then close hotmail so our TA wouldn't get suspicious then look to be struggling away for a few minutes, then when he was on the other side of the room just ctrl+V and say, "Ok, I think I got it."
My final personal example was for the same class, the programming one. I hadn't been doing anything all semester because it was so easy to just cheat so by the time the final rolled around I was in big trouble. The task was to create a program in Python that would make a madlib. I understood the concept, make a program that can import a text doc, read it for an indicator, show the user a message and replace the space with the user's input, but I hadn't the faintest idea about how to go about doing that. In a final act of desperation I actually paid a friend to do it for me. This was my least proud moment as a student.
The last case of cheating that I want to discuss happenend in my digital media class. This time, I was not the perpetrator. Our assignment was to make a video that synced well with music. My group finished on time and handed our project in. When it came time to watch the other group's work, one group stood out among the rest. Not for its quality but for its blatant falsness. Their movie was about a what looks like a drug deal but in the brief case is a mens dress shirt. It was someones project where the assignment was to make an ad for something. The thing that stood out was that not one of the group appeard anywhere in the video. There were 8 people in the movie all together and not one of them was a person from the group. Everyone in the class, prof included, was too polite to just come out and say, "Bullshit!" Because it was just a video file on the disc it is impossible to trace but it didn't even have original credits. It seemed so obvious that they had just roughly taken this from somewhere else and showed it in class. But video can't be traced for plagirism like written work can and they got away with it.
Don't judge me. I'm doing that enough. I've never cheated since then and don't plan to but it was just so easy.
Ok, degeneracy in education facilitated by technology. It is clear that she learned very little while there because technology made it possible for her to cheat. Technology is then depriving this person of the education that they are paying for. If learning is not taking place can it still be said to be education?
I have a friend who went to SFU Surrey for the Tech One program. The Tech One program is an introduction to computers in general. It covers programming, math, digital media, communication in a text based medium and more. While enrolled in this, my friend found it very easy to cheat on much of her school work. The following is a first-person account written from my notes on my interview with her.
I'm not a cheater. I don't believe in it. I've always found that I can do my own work better than other people can and I actually like doing it. That was true before I went to SFU Surrey. There, everyone cheated. It was never cheating on anything major...well maybe a couple of things.
It started with this test we were forced to take every week for our "English" class. We were to go online and take this 10 question test. The thing was you were allowed to retake the test as many times as you wanted until you got them all right. What we would all do was sit around in a computer lab and make an answer key to this test and email it around to everyone in class. It was an effort to actually make it but it helped a lot of people and I was always gratefull when I got emailed it so writing it every now and then didn't bother me.
The next instance of cheating I was involved in was in my programming class. In this class we had two lectures and then, every week we had a practical test where we had to show a TA that we could do what was discussed in lecture. In the practical test, we were in a computer lab with 30 other people and the computers had the internet. What happened was we'd email around the correct code then simply copy and paste it from our hotmail into python. To avoid detection we would ctrl+C then close hotmail so our TA wouldn't get suspicious then look to be struggling away for a few minutes, then when he was on the other side of the room just ctrl+V and say, "Ok, I think I got it."
My final personal example was for the same class, the programming one. I hadn't been doing anything all semester because it was so easy to just cheat so by the time the final rolled around I was in big trouble. The task was to create a program in Python that would make a madlib. I understood the concept, make a program that can import a text doc, read it for an indicator, show the user a message and replace the space with the user's input, but I hadn't the faintest idea about how to go about doing that. In a final act of desperation I actually paid a friend to do it for me. This was my least proud moment as a student.
The last case of cheating that I want to discuss happenend in my digital media class. This time, I was not the perpetrator. Our assignment was to make a video that synced well with music. My group finished on time and handed our project in. When it came time to watch the other group's work, one group stood out among the rest. Not for its quality but for its blatant falsness. Their movie was about a what looks like a drug deal but in the brief case is a mens dress shirt. It was someones project where the assignment was to make an ad for something. The thing that stood out was that not one of the group appeard anywhere in the video. There were 8 people in the movie all together and not one of them was a person from the group. Everyone in the class, prof included, was too polite to just come out and say, "Bullshit!" Because it was just a video file on the disc it is impossible to trace but it didn't even have original credits. It seemed so obvious that they had just roughly taken this from somewhere else and showed it in class. But video can't be traced for plagirism like written work can and they got away with it.
Don't judge me. I'm doing that enough. I've never cheated since then and don't plan to but it was just so easy.
Ok, degeneracy in education facilitated by technology. It is clear that she learned very little while there because technology made it possible for her to cheat. Technology is then depriving this person of the education that they are paying for. If learning is not taking place can it still be said to be education?
4 comments:
This is absolutely a good example of degeneracy in education caused by technology. In these types of classes it would be very hard for a Prof to have control and be able to watch all students. This then brings up the question of how could the Prof or university ever be able to get this type of cheating under control? Is that even a possibility?
This is by no means is learning in education. The only thing that this student has learned is how to cheat in the future. Although this particular student claims that she will never cheat again, who is to say that the rest of the class will not. The type of message that this is sending to first year students is that they will be able to cheat in university to get by. I do not believe that this is the type of message that SFU wants to convey.
The student interviewed also brought up a very valid point about how at the end when her final came along, she was stuck because cheating the whole time did not allow her to learn. She simply walked away with a passing grade (by paying someone to do the final) and no understanding of the content of the course. This issue brings into light the fact that cheating will also contribute to degeneracy in our society. If our university students all cheat their way through school and graduate with little knowledge, where will they end up in the work force? In society in general? Will they be able to get a job and positively contribute to society since they will not possess the skills and knowledge required in their field, or probably any other field?
I agree with Hilary, this is a good example of degeneracy in education. However, I can't say he/she didn't learn anything. Technology not only hampered his/her ability to learn the material he/she should have, it taught her/him how to be more morally corrupt. In essence, it made this student's move towards ethical degeneration far simpler. Since cheating was so easy in this instance, what is to stop the student from 'cheating' in the real word?
Kristina
I'm not sure if I can agree that this is degeneracy in education per se. You make the argument that technology is depriving her from the good education she paid for, and yet, to put the onus largely on technology is unfair. Technology made it easier to cheat, that does not seem worth disputing. However, to say technology "deprived" her of education is untrue. She deprived herself of education by not taking the oppurtunity to excercise her brain and instead choosing to cheat.
As for your question, if learning is not taking place can it still be said to be education? I think this is a very difficult question that deserves a subtle answer. Education is still being offered. But if there are means to get the slip of paper or three credits that denote education and the recipient does not learn, then she is not taking advantage of education. Perhaps, however, education has failed in this case because we have not been instilled with a proper respect of knowledge and education. This lack of respect touches on what Kristina has brought up in her post "The Decline of the Book Review: A Harbinger of Complete Degeneracy" and it seems the solution is to instill this respect of education during childhood. Then, if one is presented with a method of cheating that is " so easy", she will choose to do the work and get the education.
I think this is most definitely an example of the degeneration of education. Whether he/she wanted to learn and take in anything she was learning or not, he/she enrolled in the course, and that is one less person who potentially wants to be in the course whose spot was taken. If that isn't a degeration in education, I don't know what is.
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