When I was in school, the tiniest instance of cheating could get one a failing grade. With the advent of smaller and more portable gadgets, it seems the Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Sydney is thinking of scrapping this idea altogether and allow their students to access sources of information in the middle of examinations using their gadgets.
By “sources of information,” I meant students are allowed to access the internet on their notebooks, call anyone they like on their mobile phones, or listen to podcasts. There are, however, some limitations. For example, the students aren’t allowed to look up answers to a math exam, although if the questions were specifically crafted by the professors, I don’t see how that’s possible. They’ll find similar math problems on the net, sure, but not the very same. Also, students are required to cite sources, to avoid plagiarism (in case of essay exams, I presume).
Says Dierdre Coleman, the English teacher who pushed for this to happen, “What they will need to do is access information from all their sources quickly and they will need to check the reliability of their information.”
Such a method has its own pros and cons. For instance, students will be trained to access and obtain information quickly in real time; a skill that could be of great use in the real world. However, being spared of having to memorize equations or long speeches might stunt their abilities to commit things to memory, or having to pay attention to tiny details.
Clearly, portable gadgets are changing how we live our lives in ways more than one. As gadgets become smaller and more portable still, who knows what else within our society will change in the future.
