The school year is coming to an end, but an age old problem is popping up.
“If some parents knew what their kids were doing they would be very disappointed,” explained a Lubbock high school student.
Cheating used to mean writing notes on your hand or on a note card. But, a new study by McAfee Security Firm found that nearly a third of U.S. teens admitted to using technology to cheat.
“I’m assuming he just took a picture of the answer sheet, found it on my desk and air dropped it to one of his friends and accidently air dropped it to my phone,” explain Roosevelt High School teacher Kara Estes.
It’s not just teachers and other students who are noticing the problem.
“One of the students got hold of the answers, took a picture of it and then sent that screenshot to the entire class minus my child, they didn’t want it,” explained a mother who asked to remain nameless.
It’s a problem that isn’t just limited to high school, either. Kessler International found that 9 in 10 college students admit to cheating.
During finals week at Texas Christian University, administrators disciplined at least a dozen students for using technology to cheat. When we talked to local students, we found that what they used at TCU is also being used in your student’s classes.
“They use apps or online websites like Quizlet and just search up the answers so that while they are taking the test, they can get them all right,” explained a Lubbock high school student.
When used properly, Quizlet helps your student study and collaborate with other students before doing homework or taking a quiz.
But when used incorrectly, it has a never ending source of information. In fact, when we tested it, we found answers to nearly any question on every school subject.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“Snapchat is a really big thing that they’ve started using, and they just take pictures of their own papers and send it over to their friends,” Estes said.
Plus, parents may be helping them cheat without even knowing it.
“I think a lot of new devices can be hidden really easily, for example some people have Apple smart watches, and that’s really easy for them to be able to keep during the test and be able to cheat,” explained a student.
It’s a never ending battle teachers fight to keep up with on a daily basis.
“We have systems like Turn It In that some districts have that is a plagiarism-checking site, and you turn it in and it checks it against many different databases … I think it’s important to make it harder to cheat than to do the right thing,” said Jamie Wormsbaker, who teaches at Lubbock-Cooper ISD.
While teachers do what they can, they need parents’ help.
“I think parents need to be more aware what kind of work students are doing in class and what’s required in that work,” said Wormsbaker.
That’s something parents and teens both agree with.
“We need to be responsible as parents to educate our children as to how to be responsible,” said a concerned mom.
“I wish parents would understand what is going on in their kids’ lives. Like, what kind of homework they’re working on, what tools are allowed to be used on the homework,” explained a Lubbock High School teacher.
