Newest "Cheat" method in schools. 2

[SantaMufasa]

Man, things have changed since Beaver Cleaver and I were in school...I just heard that the newest BIG thing in schools (from middle school through college) is to CHEAT on tests via text messaging.

Local schools are implementing a $250 unit that jams cell signals for the entire school.

What are your thoughts on either/both sides of this issue?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I can provide you with low-cost, remote Database Administration services: see our website and contact me via www.dasages.com]

 

[flapeyre]

This is another reason to ban cell phones in class.

Feles mala! Cur cista non uteris? Stramentum novum in ea posui!

 

[sbudzynski]

I don't understand why the "mosquito" ring would even matter for cheating purposes, it serves the same function as a vibrating alert.

Except of course the cheater now risks the chance that their professor may hear the high pitched ring.

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Steve Budzynski


"So, pass another round around for the kids. Who have nothing left to lose and for those souls old and sold out by the soles of my shoes"

 

[flapeyre]

Hearing loss is a fact of life as you grow older. I am 50, and I ahve to turn up the TV a lot louder now than I used to. My wife is constantly turning it down so I can't hear. I guess headphones are the only way around that.

The higher the sound frequency, the less range it can be detected at. The lowere the frequency, the grreater the distance. Toss in the ambient noise in the classroom, the reduced hearing range of most adults, and there you go.

The risk is greater that the teacher will hear the phone vibrating against the desk than hearing the mosquito tone.


Feles mala! Cur cista non uteris? Stramentum novum in ea posui!

 

[CajunCenturion]

Hearing loss or not, it's still a distraction to other students in the class.

You don't have the right to disturb other students in the class. Cheating is cheating regardless of method.

So too is is being inconsiderate and disrespectful. If you want to considerate and respectful of others, then turn the damn thing off. It's amazing that in theaters and classrooms that you even have to ask people to turn beepers and phones off.

--------------
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[Stella740pl]

The risk is greater that the teacher will hear the phone vibrating against the desk than hearing the mosquito tone.
Does it really make that big a difference? Maybe in a few years they will think of a totally new way to alert you, say pinch you, or whatever else.

The bottom line is still the same: if a teacher sees or hears a phone... Well, you know. So, select a method of alert the teacher cannot hear - and then don't take it out. It's that simple. On the other hand, if you cannot take it out anyway, you might turn it off altogether, right? Then you don't have to think, what is louder, the vibration, the mosquito tone, or your scream when pinched.

 

[sbudzynski]

Exactly the bottom line remains if the teacher sees or hears the phone.

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Steve Budzynski


"So, pass another round around for the kids. Who have nothing left to lose and for those souls old and sold out by the soles of my shoes"

 

[sbudzynski]

You know what would be funny, a ringtone that was like a cough or sneeze or something..

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Steve Budzynski


"So, pass another round around for the kids. Who have nothing left to lose and for those souls old and sold out by the soles of my shoes"

 

[gbaughma]

Nah.. what's funny is my "Crazy Frog" ringtone... hehe

(I know, it's already waning in the U.K., but it's just hitting the U.S.....)



Just my 2¢

"In order to start solving a problem, one must first identify its owner." --Me
--Greg

 

[sbudzynski]

Crazy frog, im not familiar with that! Let me hit up google (haha)

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Steve Budzynski


"So, pass another round around for the kids. Who have nothing left to lose and for those souls old and sold out by the soles of my shoes"

 

[flapeyre]

I'm with CC - shut the darn thing off. Leave it in your (presumably locked) locker. Any lesser action is, as CC said, inconsiderate at best. We should not have to say this; it ought to be understood. What a lot of folks apparently do not understand is that while their right to engage in stupid behavior may be protected by the Constitution (I hear so much of that blather these days), they are still responsible for the consequences of said behavior. ("Zero? Moi?")

When I was in high school, we had a pay phone (remember those)? which we could use between classes. Back then, a cell phone was the pay phone (I remember pay calls costing a nickel) at the police station that recent arrestees used to call their lawyers. Blackberries grew wild in the country, and were (and still are) good to eat.

Learn to use your wits, pay attention in class, and stop depending so much on technology. Katrina taught me that lesson. As one official said, "For all our technology, we went from the Jetsons to the Flintstones in about three hours."

Feles mala! Cur cista non uteris? Stramentum novum in ea posui!

 

[Thadeus]

[head buried in sand]Not sure when this post will arrive since I had to write it out on a piece of slate and send it via the pony express...

I just wanted to relay about when I was a kid and we had to pay for telegrams with pennies cause nickels hadn't been invented yet.[/head buried in sand]

 

[pmonett]

This is a very entertaining thread. I especially appreciate the roll-out of the complete list of irrelevant comparisons justifying the use of phones during class (guns, cars, depriving of rights, etc...).
My point of view is simple : a student's job in class is to study. A phone has absolutely no use for studying, therefor any use of it is unwarranted and should be prohibited.
Given that students are the sneaky sort we all know for having been there, the only way to effectively forbid using a phone during class or an exam is to block the signal.
This does not infringe on anyone's liberty, since the ones who don't cheat do not phone, and the ones who do phone are up to no good. End of story.

Pascal.

 

[Grenage]

Well said, pmonett. Quite so.


Carlsberg don't run I.T departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[Trevoke]

pmonett : very valid.

A no cell-phone policy would be a good backup for a signal block. If you need to reach your child, or if your child needs to reach you, then make a phone available, not a payphone but a normal phone line : call the school, the school will warn your child.

"That time in Seattle... was a nightmare. I came out of it dead broke, without a house, without anything except a girlfriend and a knowledge of UNIX."
"Well, that's something," Avi says. "Normally those two are mutually exclusive."
-- Neal Stephenson, "Cryptonomicon"

 

[Stella740pl]

Well said.

But, I gather, you are not in USA.

As I was told by flapeyre in response to a similar proposal many posts ago (1-Jun-06 18:44), "jamming cell phone signals (or any other radio signal) in the USA would be a violation of Federal law".

It's a pity.

 

[Trevoke]

I'm in the US actually. A bit saddened by the current state of affairs, although I definitely appreciate the inventivity of the ringtone hack that adults can't hear.

"That time in Seattle... was a nightmare. I came out of it dead broke, without a house, without anything except a girlfriend and a knowledge of UNIX."
"Well, that's something," Avi says. "Normally those two are mutually exclusive."
-- Neal Stephenson, "Cryptonomicon"

 

[EBGreen]

I thought that active jamming was a violation. I didn't think that passive obstruction (special paints/farraday cages) were.

[red]"... isn't sanity really just a one trick pony anyway?! I mean, all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you are good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick[/red]

 

[Auger282]

Trevoke... only some adults cant here it... and I'm sure all the other students looking at the kid with the high pitched ring tone would make it obvious.

EBGreen.. as Stella wrote jamming is not allowed in the USofA


My opinion is take'em away if you catch'em.. return'em at the end of class. If they are stupid enough to use them during a test that sounds like a good zero.

Any teacher knows when a student spontaneously becomes a brain for a test out of the blue... *shrug* I'll have to ask my father (who's a teacher) and see what he thinks and what his school's policy is.

 

[Stella740pl]

the inventivity of the ringtone hack that adults can't hear.
Well, if those are college students, they are adults, and some are not so young. And why do you think that professors/teachers are all old or middle-aged? Not always quite so.

 

[pmonett]

Stella740Pl :

Indeed you are correct, I do not live in the USA. However, I would remind you that laws can be repelled, or replaced by other laws.
Thus hope remains.

Pascal.