Schools target digital media players as potential cheating devices
Schools across the country are targeting digital media players, such as iPods and Zunes, as a potential cheating device. Mountain View High School in Meridian, Idaho recently enacted a ban on digital media players after school officials realized some students were downloading formulas and other material onto them. Shana Kemp, spokeswoman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, says she does not have hard statistics on the phenomenon but believes it is not unusual for schools to ban digital media players. “I think it is becoming a national trend, she says. “We hope that each district will have a policy in place for technology—it keeps a lot of the problems down.” Henry Jones, a teacher at San Gabriel High School in San Gabriel, California confiscated a student's iPod during a class and found the answers to a test, crib notes, and a definition list hidden among the teen's music selections. Schools in Seattle, Washington, have also banned the devices. Duke University, on the other hand, began providing iPods to its students three years ago as part of an experiment to see how the devices could be used to enhance learning. According to Tim Dodd, executive director of Duke’s Center for Academic Integrity, the music players proved to be invaluable for some courses, including music, engineering, and sociology. He says incidents of cheating have declined at Duke over the past 10 years largely because the community expects its students to have academic integrity. “Trying to fight the technology without a dialogue on values and expectations is a losing battle,” says Mr. Dodd. “I think there's kind of a backdoor benefit here. As teachers are thinking about how technology has corrupted, they're also thinking about ways it can be used productively.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
By Rebecca Boone
[Full story]
[Editor’s Note: Below is information on iPod issues in some Michigan districts.]
[NSBA School Law pages on iPod restrictions]