Cheating! In schools? Say it isn't so.

This just in from the BBC, complete with a scary headline to drive traffic to the story:

Hi-tech exam cheating increases says Ofqual

Yes, cheating on exams exists. It has always occurred and now we have a new bogeyman - those evil cellphones! Here's the interesting part of the story, or as I like to say; How to scare people with useless statistics:

Figures from Ofqual show a 6% rise in cheating by candidates although the body points out cheating is still very rare, affecting 0.03% of exams taken.

So .03% of all exams taken had some sort of cheating occur. That's just HUGE isn't it? Not so much. The real issue is that we are still trying to quantify learning based on multiple-guess assessments. How about if we make the assessment non-Google-able instead, and assess student ability to locate data, and discern if that data is valid, and then use it to make new knowledge from that data?
Back to the story:

Another approach, tested in Denmark, has been to stop trying to prevent the use of technology in exams and allow pupils to have open access to the internet.

I wonder which country will have better creative thinkers in the coming years? My money is on Denmark.

Where is my flash drive?

I'm in the market for a USB-Flash drive again. It seems like each one I buy always has some downside and I don't figure it out until I try to use it. Some are too wide to fit next to another USB plug. Some connectors detach from the body very easily. Some have caps that get lost too easy...

My last perfect USB-Flash drive was a nice Sandisk 2GB Titanium Cruzer. It's missing.

So this time, I'm going to go even smaller than the last one and get a Corsair Flash Voyager Mini Flash Drive. Why? Well, it's a bit cheaper than the Sandisk, no cap to loose, and it doesn't have that awful U3 software installed in it (which I remove ASAP anyway).

So... we'll see how long this one lasts.

I use email. I am 'old people'

I look forward to reading the trend analysis reports of technology use of tweens and teens by GenDigital - except when it makes me feel old.

The report results are from March 2008, but just recently published show teens and "tweens" are reading less, instead spending more time surfing the web, playing games, and watching TV.

That doesn't surprise most technology using teachers who see it on a daily basis. What does surprise me though is the description that 'e-mail is for old people' and 'e-mail is, like, so yesterday'. I guess I should have figured that out when they first said it two years ago.

Another indicator worth noting is that wireless phone ownership is up from 65 percent last year to 73 percent among teens, and 26 percent of tweens also owning a cell/wireless phone. Text messaging (no email here folks)is cited as the primary activity above actually talking to people.

Just a couple of thoughts - what are schools doing to integrate the communication tools that 73% of your teens are showing up with? How do you effectively go about banning something that ubiquitous?

Technology replacing teachers?

In an online PLC (Professional Learning Community), a discussion thread about technology use by teachers popped up and the thought that if so much technology ends up in the classroom, then teachers might be 'outsourced' or made obsolete.

Well - If you can be replaced by a computer then you probably should be!

Technology will not be replacing teachers anytime soon, as far as I can tell, but one important fact in the conversation remains:

Teachers who know how to use technology effectively to help their students connect and collaborate together online will replace those who do not.

Another sure thing: technology is changing schools, and it's not going to go away.