Laptop Exams? 321
Orion316 asks: "One of the classes I am in just had an open laptop, open Internet examination with us e-mailing the answers to the prof. This is an open laptop examination. You may bring your laptop to the examination with its wireless modem. During the examination you may search for and read materials from the course Web site or from other sites on the Internet. I was wondering what thoughts people have on this." This is one of the cooler things I've heard of in a while. It was only a matter of time before the new technology started to affect us in ways we might not have predicted before. Who would have thought that the spiral notebook would ever become obsolete when it came to schooling?
A few points (Score:1)
Now, accessing the internet while taking exams is a decision the professor has to make. I wouldn't want my students looking up the answers (defeats the point of an exam which is usually to determine whether the student can *synthesize new work from given (or absorbed-in-class) data*. If they can find answers on the net, then they're not gettnig the point. Serious students will do the work because they know that doing the work makes them stronger in the topic area. (I'm going to ignore makework and such things; I don't usually find such stuff on tests.)
At any rate, you can sidestep the internet issue by simply firewalling the IPs you issue your students for the duration of the test. We use DHCP here, and it would (as I understand it) be trivial to give testtaking students a thus-restricted IP. Say only to the instructor's lecture note server and a couple satistics (or whatever) websites. This, in my experience, would have been immensely cool.
It does favor the computer literate, no question, but most things do nowadays. I would imagine that this will eventually become a departmenntal policy: either you can have laptop tests in the Math Dept or you can't. Just like calculators, some are legal, some aren't, and some can't be used on certain sections of the test. As for financial discrimination, that's an issue that individual colleges will have to address. I maintain that a strong clear mind with a reasonable tool (depends on the job) will handily defeat a moron with 100 times the resources.
And, a final point: There are many questions a computer just won't help you with. Mathematica or MathCAD might integrate for you, but if you don't know what interal to give it, you can't solve your physics problem. If you can't code, the machine won't do it for you (well, there *IS* VB, but....) and the tool will certainly not enable cheating for courses like Foundations of Computing Theory ("This problem be solved on a TM. Prove or disprove this statement.") or advanced philosophy ("What do you remember about the St. Augustine Lecture? Compare and contrast with our guest speaker from Thursday...")
IR / radio cheating is a tricky point, but I suspect that it could by defeated by a simple application of duct tape or the like... or simply requiring that laptops to be used don't have an IR port.
Just another way to slow you down (Score:1)
I would imagine that students with Linux and Lynx would have an advantage over those with Internet Explorer, with graphics and javascript enabled...
On the plus side, I learned a lot of the material simply by indexing notes, textbooks, and whatnot.
Mark Edwards [mailto]
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
Here's the deal (Score:1)
As far as emailing the answers around the room, that isn't too far from using the internet, since everyone is basically going to find the same things. At my university, we have two names for this act: cheating and plagerism. Open notes on exams may be the only way to go, for in the real world, scientists and engineers will always be looking up constants, and maybe a formulae or laws every now again to apply it correctly. This is a building process, unlike using a laptop on the internet, which is a plageristic process. sig(quote+"\n"+sign());
Knowledge Vs. Retrieval (Score:1)
But, in other circumstances it is vital to ensure that a student -KNOWS- relavent facts.
This may or may not relate to the orginal exam the poster spoke about.
Surgeon: I allways get confused which is the liver and which is the kidney. But I allways have Grey's Anatomy to help me look it up!
sure (Score:1)
Personally, if I'm running some sort of company that makes use in organic chemistry, I'm not going to care about any of my employess organic chemistry skill or knowledge, but rather their organic chemistry problem solving skill or knowledge. If they have to ask someone else for help, who cares, as long as they get good results in the end (and they don't get me into trouble)? Like it or not, if you're in a university class, you're not doing it for acadaemic purposes anymore. Literally you'd find technical schools to be better for acadaemia than universities, so I think all that should matter in university classes is the ability to solve the problems in question, no matter the method of solving them.
A Great Book on This... (Score:1)
Whoops, that's wrong... (Score:1)
Best Regards,
Shortwave
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:1)
I know E=mc^2 - but I certainly don't know every detail about it. Few people do, I'd wager.
Sure I know the literal use as an equation. I can plug in values and derive unknowns. But do I understand its every nuance -- everything it implies? No. Not a chance.
Now this may not be the best example here (in fact, it's probably an incredibly poor example, but it's Sunday, and my brain is in weekend mode
I just had an online exam... (Score:1)
Cheating would be virtually impossible because they were essays and who had the time to cheat anyways.
Essays are like written fingerprints in that a Prof familiar with your work can tell if you wrote it.
Re:Rose-Hulman (Score:1)
Some (students) think it is a bad idea to let us use our laptops in class (particularly in Math classes) because we won't learn the concepts. But most of the students here are of sufficient caliber that they understand the necessity of learning the concepts and it isn't much of a problem. And those that don't get burned on the tests because they are usually divided into two parts, one by hand and one with a computer.
Re:unfair testing (Score:1)
I would have thought that the idea is to test *comprehension* in whatever field the exam is for. That seems to fit my comp sci courses, and I can't recall ever seeing a question on an English exam that starts out with "Solve the following:"
Brian
coil notebooks (the paper kind) (Score:1)
Technology for it's own sake is trash. Use it when it provides a better solution.
Hmmm, but - how do they...? (Score:1)
with someone else in your class?
This is about the main problem that keeps schools here from doing such exams - How can you grade a student, if you can't be 100% certain whether the answers given by the student are truly his or not.
Also, they won't do exams on the school PCs, because it'd be too much work preparing the machines so that they have what you need but nothing, that could aid you more than intended by the teacher.
education for everyone? (was: Re:Rose-Hulman) (Score:1)
What about those, who just can't afford a good notebook (note: when I say good notebook, I mean something post 486-notebook, because a much older notebook will be sooo slooooow, that the student will waste a good deal of time waiting for his/her notebook to respond)?
I am currently studying for a CS degree in an evening class. Most students of these classes buy a notebook before the end of their 4-year courses, since they make life in the courses so much easier, but hardly any of the students buy one within the first year (since most start the study course without much CS background, and some simply cannot afford to go to a normal university). The evening classes university requires students to have employment according to their CS skills acquired at school. Working in the CS field then allows students more easily to buy some notebook on their own, since your work pay usually gets better during the course.
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:1)
Re:Who wants to be a millionaire?? (Score:1)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:1)
Re:Rose-Hulman (Score:1)
The mental picture I get of 100 students in one of those old lecture halls all typing away at the same time drowning out the professor they're trying to take notes from is either very funny or very frightening, but not as scary as spending 24 hours a day trying to keep that thing from being stolen.:(
Re:Calulators in math class (Score:1)
and where can I get a slide ruler these days I want to start using one of those
just to freak out the other students
http://theotherside.com/dvd/ [theotherside.com]
What about Thinking (Score:1)
This is why america is following behind in educating thier children
http://theotherside.com/dvd/ [theotherside.com]
Has anyone taken the AP calculus test. (Score:1)
I am concerned that in the "New World" that we will be using or minds less
and allowing computers to do our thinking for us instead of use them as tools
to help assist our thinking.
http://theotherside.com/dvd/ [theotherside.com]
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:1)
Re:NOT smart, if you ask me. (Score:1)
sensor would help see who is cheating.
Re:Rose-Hulman's laptop policy (Score:1)
Personally, I hate laptops. The screens are small (not too much anymore, but they were), smaller resolution, sound sucks, gaming sucks, that little joke of a pencil eraser they call a pointer, they overheat, wear out faster than desktops, blah blah blah. I would seriously consider going to a different school if I was required to purchase and use a laptop cuz I dislike 'em that much. I think the concept is really kewl, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. I don't like to use a stripped down computer (palmtops are not part of my argument). If it can't do everything that my computer can do now, I don't want it. Besides that, laptops cost a lot more, and are not easily upgradable. So what are the schools going to do when all their students new computers are outdated & slow when they become Juniors & Seniors? Suggest that they trade-up & get a new one? BS.
A few of my high level ACS classes have a much better solution. With Web-CT and Mallard, teachers can make online tests that you take from your most easily accessible lab or dorm room. They can be timed or open ended within a certain timeframe, we have any resource we can think of open to us (just like the real world), and best of all, no worries about getting a laptop to a test & having it not boot. I've had a couple classes where the teacher allowed us to use any resource we can bring in (open notes, book, laptop...), and I don't like them as much as online tests. If you're gonna allow people to use the internet to answer questions (IRC anyone?) you might as well let them get out of the classroom & out of that stressfull environment to do it.
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:1)
I'd agree that most people spend more than $14- a week on their social activity. However, it's certainly true that not everyone can afford $14- a week on top of what they're already spending ( especially if it's an up-front cost )
Re:Cheating is not an issue. (Score:1)
That's great if the exam is about using search engines. But unless the course is intended to serve as an introduction to using a web browser, it seems inappropriate.
There are different ways of getting an answer, in the end it is results that matter in the real world.
In the real world, you don't work under exam conditions. Ifr your goal is to "simulate the real world", a homework assignment ( where students could use any means including the web to do research ) would be a better means of this assesment than this exam..
You fail to address my main objection -- that it does not adequately serve the purpose of a traditional exam ( namely that you know that you are evaluating the student and not someone else ) or a written assignment ( which provides a more in depth educational experience )
To me, this whole thing just smacks of "technology for the sake of technology". I don't see how it offers any tangible advantage over more traditional methods of assesment.
Re:unfair testing (Score:1)
Oddly enough, the people who "understand" usually "know" as well. Knowing is necessary, but insufficient.
Knowing stuff is just regurgitating facts,
Not always. I "know" my physics formulae years after I've taken physics, because I understand the concepts. It can be "regurgitating the facts". It can also be a by-product of comprehension ( not to mention doing ones homework ). In math ( where I work ), the students who do a lot of problems will not only obtain the "knowledge", but they'll also obtain comprehension and application skills. Exams should not be just about what you know -- they should test comprehension and application. And a well written exam will do this.
The way you talk, you make it sound as though there exist students that "understand the concepts" but somehow don't know anything. During my years as a TA, I've found this to be false. It's simply impossible to understand a topic if you don't know the fundamentals.
The Web would be used, in this case, for gathering facts, not gathering opinions.
The idea of pursuing research in an exam setting is just absurd. No-one conducts any meaningful research in such a setting. This kind of exam is just as easy to cheat on as a homework assignment, but fails to offer the educational benefits of an in-depth project.
hey are there to teach things like critical thinking, research and writing skills,
You will never be able to teach research or deep problem solving skills in an exam. Exams are primarily to test basic competency, comprehension, and application of the knowledge as taught in class.
For some courses, this is sufficient, because the courses are designed to simply provide the student with basic competency in the subject matter ( for example, college algebra ). In other courses, especially higher level courses, this is certainly not sufficient, and a greater emphasis on alternative methods of assesment ( oral exams, group work, written assignments, take home exams ) are more appropriate.
You say that emphasis should be placed on research -- and I agree with you. Indeed, upper level courses typically do place more emphasis on this. But exams are not the place to do research.
Re:unfair testing (Score:1)
I see the idea behind it... (Score:2)
That's still not a great way of doing things. If you're good, you can still look up most of the answers, finish on time, and get a good grade (trust me, I've done this). People keep talking about tests being only about rote memorization here, and that's not strictly the case. They're also to see how well you prepared for the task, how well you can pick the important stuff out from the chaff, and the like. Believe it or not, these are also important skills.
All told, I wouldn't care if a test was open-laptop or not, seeing as I have no laptop anyway. Unless, of course, they let me bring in my PalmIII.
"Real world" style exams... (Score:2)
Learning stuff - especially computer stuff, isn't all about memorization and regurgitation. It's about finding the information you need quickly and efficiently, and knowing how to use that information.
In the "real world" (and I'm NOT talking about the crappy made-for-MTV shows -- blech!) if you are given a problem to solve, you can use every resource at your disposal to solve the problem.
I've taken programming classes where the exams expected you to hand-write a 200+ line C program on the back of the exam sheet. Um...hello? When are you ever going to have to hand-write code? When is hand-written code useful? It can't be executed, debugged, or otherwise used in any useful fashion. (That was actually my answer to that question on the exam - the prof was cool about it and gave me 1/4 credit for pointing out how pointless it was, considering all the coursework was done on comps running a *nice* emacs setup)
In the "real world" if I'm asked to write a program, chances are, I already have some boilerplate code I can throw in to start from, as well as some re-usable code from other projects. I'll probably have at least 1/2 the code for the project done in the first 5-10 minutes - with the other half being the project-specific code.
If I need to check my syntax, I have reference books within easy reach. If I need help paring down the code or figuring out an algorithm, there are people I can email, mailing lists and newsgroups, search engines, etc... If I need quick answers, there's always IRC (or ICQ if someone clued-in happens to be on).
In short, there are TONS of resources available, as long as you know how to use them. It's silly for exams to be given in any other context than a "real world" situation. When you're programming, you will be using an editor of some sort - probably one with syntax highlighting and other features to help eliminate the sillier mistakes (forgetting to close quotes/braces, forgetting
Now, the article doesn't mention whether or not it was a computer course -- but I can imagine many of the same tenets would be applicable to other studies as well. The info is out there. The help is out there. It's rather silly not to use it.
Which uni was this at, btw?
Acadia U does this for many courses (Score:2)
Acadia University [acadiau.ca], in Nova Scotia, Canada, uses laptops to some degree or another for all of its courses. If you do not have a laptop one will be provided. Every room includeing residence is wired with multiple ethernet jacks. Acadia is an very good small university with an excellent CS program. While the fees are a little high by Canadian standards the cerriculum is cutting edge.
observations (Score:2)
its fairly easy to cheat now without a computer. i mean, realistically, if you want to cheat nowadays, it really isnt that hard. that's why so many schools push the honor code- because they know they cant prevent it from happening. the college i go to, the professor doesnt even stay in the room for most of the exams. a lot of places probably arent that trusting, but schools could do a lot more to try to prevent cheating and most of them dont bother because they know people WILL get around it if they have to. (ie putting formulas and things into their graphing calculators, etc)
2) effect on what exams really test
people used to make the same arguments about what calculator use would do to math exams. while some of it is true, the best thing to do is probably to formulate the exam questions with the use of a laptop in mind. in other words, less memorization/core-dumping of facts and more critical thought, just as calculators encourage more problem-solving and less rote formula crunching. is this really a bad thing?
3) inevitability
in a couple of years, i think it will be impossible to prevent people from bring a computer to exams anyway. with the whole internet appliance thing and the future as envisioned by those wearable computer folks, people are going to be toting computers around with them whereever they go.
unc_
Re:Bad idea. (Score:2)
My point exactly ! These "take home exams" perform the same function as homework assignments, they are not really exams in the traditional sense, and shouldn't be used as a direct substitute for traditional exams. Either you do want students to be able to do their own in depth research for the assesment in question, or you don't.
If you do want the student to be able to do some real research and information gathering, then a take home exam gives the students the opportunity to adress more in-depth questions. ( BTW, I'm studying PhD in math. I agree that you can't put hard proofs on exams. Even qualifying exam questions are usually of the "follow-your-nose" variety. ) There is no advantage to having an exam for this kind of thing.
On the other hand, if you don't want in depth research or very tough questions to be a part of the assesment, there is no advantage of offering unrestricted web access.
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:2)
Once we have real AI, people will ask "why should I need to think" ? The point is that these skills are essential . Integration involves more problem solving than it does memorization. These skills are essential to solve problems you encounter later on, many of which are too general for a calculator to solve.
you don't have to spend hours memorizing regular expression syntax
No, you don't because you can memorize most of what you need in a few minutes ( or after writing one or two programs ).
because you have your "Perl in a Nutshell" book on the desk, and you'll memorize eventually by doing anyway
Just owning the book won't help you memorize. You need to use the book. The students who do their homework will learn the basic syntax as a by product.
I think the ability to find information is going to become much more important than being able to memorize it.
This is important, and you evaluate these skills with research projects and take home exams, you don't evaluate these skills in class.
There's far too much out there to be able to know it all, and the people who will excel are the people who know where to find information they need in short order.
However, the people who lack basic competency and don't do their homework ( which is what the exams test for ) will not excel at anything.
However I think this is an inherent fault of technology and its associated cost;
At least within the US, a used desktop is cheap , or even free.
Re:On cheating... (Score:2)
It may not be cheating, but it certainly makes cheating easier. Here's my main objection -- the students should basically know everything prior to the exam, and with the help of a cheat-sheet, they should have all the information they need. They shouldn't need dig around to answer the questions. Moreover, research is not the kind of thing that should be performed in an exam room ( IMHO )
Bad idea. (Score:2)
Show your work (Score:2)
I can't imagine a consciencious professor who would accept a mathematical or scientific solution in final result form. All professors I've ever had REQUIRED disclosure of complete work. We all know that, in the end, anyone who takes the above sort of 'short-cut' is shooting themselves in the foot.
But the ability to take examinations online with a full lap-top, opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities. In Calculus, what's to prevent someone from installing Mathematica? What's to stop someone from setting up a collaborative software, linked back to a room of better-informed friends?
Then again, most college professors are not stupid. Those that opt for open-media examinations set up the tests in such a way that digging for information is not the skill being tested. Creative writing under timed conditions, on an assigned topic, makes the internet pretty useless - since you haven't much time to search, you can't creatively plagerize - you MUST do your own work.
Ultimately, I think that this sort of testing is the way of the future. Facts and information are becoming trivially easy to locate - why force people to memorize it? Education is becoming more about understanding, and learning to manipulate the concepts, not the facts.
Sure, you need to know the basics, but how many of us in the 'working world' function without relying on reference books, the net and our collegues? Facts are easy to find, but if you don't know what to do with them, you sink.
As for the rich-poor gap... Bah! Computers are becoming dirt cheap, especially compared to the cost of education. The upcoming web-pads (a'la Crusoe) will sell for the cost of a schoolbook in a year or two. For this level of computation, cost is not going to be an issue for long. If you can afford college, you can afford the books, and the laptop (in a year or two mind you).
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:2)
You can get an operational Pentium III laptop for as little as $999. With an educational discount
The school is already paying for a very high computer-to-student ratio in labs. An excellent argument can be made for making the ratio one-to-one and that computer should then be portable.
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Really last minute cramming (Score:2)
I think a better solution to the laptop issue would be for the school to purchase the laptops and then lease or sell them to the students. Included with the laptop would be a wireless networking card that would allow you to access the network from anywhere on campus. Instead of letting you use the whole internet for exams and such, put all the relevant information on the school's intranet (essays, texts, research papers ect.) which the students could access from the classrooms. For students who already own laptops they could merely sell the wireless networking cards. This would allow students not to fully purchase the computer (for a 2k computer it would be about 500$ a year not including interest) and would give them access to all the needed information.
Some schools are the opposite of this wiring idea, they're completely anal about computers in classrooms. My school doesn't allow non-lab computers in the computer labs which means I get yelled at if I take my Powerbook in there. Many teachers are violently opposed to computers in their classrooms, something I can understand well. I would not to be an English teacher in an auditorium that had 150 students typing away on their keyboards. In the Java course I took it sounded like it was raining whenever we all started coding, I couldn't drink a soda before class without paying the consequences. Besides the annoyance factor, laptops are fairly delicate compared to my textbooks and also would cost me a good deal more to be replaced if I threw my bag into the backseat with my laptop in there. On the upside to laptops, it would be nice in alot of classes to have the teacher's notes and slides available on the school's intranet. Not only for use in the classroom but for when I get home and need to go over the notes. Therein lies another problem, some teachers refuse to make electronic copies of their documents. It is alot of work to transfer all of your photographic slides to Powerpoint or turn your handwritten scribbles into nicely formatted notes. Some professors have TAs that can do the dirty work but many do not. Other professors just don't particularly care for computers in general and don't want to use them in class.
All in all sometimes a blackboard, chalk, and some paper have more utility than a computer lab.
Re:NOT smart, if you ask me. (Score:2)
Re:unfair testing (Score:2)
As I said, tests shouldn't be about what you know, but about what you understand. Knowing stuff is just regurgitating facts, and you don't have to "learn" anything to do that. A trained parrot can do that.
The Web is not going to enhance your understanding on any subject. Citing someone else's opinion is useless. The Web would be used, in this case, for gathering facts, not gathering opinions. Again, I'm sure it would depend on the subject matter. Its up to you to draw your own conclusions.
Besides, colleges aren't there to teach facts and data, they are there to teach things like critical thinking, research and writing skills, skills that are very, very valuable in the real world. Facts learned in college don't prepare you for employment...the facts you need to know for any given job will likely be learned on the job. But no employer can teach you how to think or how to write or how to do research...that's what colleges are there for.
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:2)
Besides, chances are if you can't afford a laptop, you probably can't afford the tuition, books, housing and other expenses involved with going to a college or university. That's what financial aid is for.
In many colleges, it is now a requirement for students to own a computer, and I know of at least one college that requires the computer to be a laptop.
Re:unfair testing (Score:2)
Actually, I think this would depend on how the exam is structured.
Remember that really no examination in which you answer a series of multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank, or even short answer questions doesn't really test your mastery of the material. It only tests your ability to memorize and regurgitate facts. How many of you have ever crammed for an exam the night before, took the test, aced it, but then the next day or two totally forget everything you "learned" for the exam? BE HONEST.
On the other hand, an exam with say, four essay type questions really could test your mastery of the material. I mean, for example, "Discuss the imagery used in Hamlet and how it interrelates to the plot." That's even perhaps a little too specific. But you get the idea, hopefully. The idea is the challenge your UNDERSTANDING of the material. To understand the material, you have to know it first.
I honestly don't see how the TRADITIONAL type of exam, in which one regurgitates facts is particular fair or useful.
Re:Rose-Hulman (Score:2)
Re:unfair testing (Score:2)
If you didn't know what you were doing, you were sunk. Extra resources weren't going to help u.
Re:Curious fact that I have noticed (Score:2)
This is the kind of knowledge that allows one to *easily* derive the formulae they haven't memorized, and it's the kind of knowledge one will never develop using the crutch of a calculator to generate symbolic solutions to calculus problems. (BTW: I speak as someone who used such a crutch, and then had to learn the error of my ways once I saw what real engineers (actual rocket scientists, some of them) were expected to know and do.) Schools that allow students to use such aids are robbing their students of the real education they should be receiving.
Knowing how/where to find the answer is a very poor substitute for knowing the answer. Serious thinking is not possible without that knowing.
Re:Calulators in math class (Score:2)
O.K., for all of you saying the calculators/computers are a good thing, try this challenge: Without using your calculator or computer, design (and build, if you feel this is too easy) a fully functioning slide rule. I don't think there are very many college students today with an understanding of logarithms (big hint there) adequate to that task...
Re:Flawed (Score:2)
I always loved those exams (too few and far between, admittedly), where I knew the material cold, walked in, aced the test in 20 minutes, checked my answers for another 10 minutes, and walked out confident while those that didn't know and understand the material were sweating it through to the bell.
BTW, one of my better profs used the length of the exam, even in an open book situation, as the mechanism to separate those that knew from those that didn't. If you knew the material, you had time to finish - if you didn't, you soon found you didn't have enough time to look everything up. Excellent tests, excellent testing method, and they produced a class of students that did know the material.
Relative obsolescence (Score:2)
In fact, I'll bet the entire concept of PCs is obsolete before the spiral notebook.
Oh, and even acid-based paper spiral notebooks can be reasonably expected to preserve their information for a century or so with no power and little liklihood of the data format becoming unreadable.
Somehow, that spiral notebook doesn't look so obsolete after all, does it?
Re:Flawed (Score:2)
Definitely. I never could understand the validity of a high-pressure, stress-inducing 2 hour session of answering questions as a true test of what I had learned in 3 and a half months of study. What I have learned is what I have learned, and a better measure of that is how well I can utilized it under real world conditions. A traditional exam setting is about as far from a real world simulation as you can get.
The artificiality of the exam situation is highly suspect as a measure of an individual's true knowledge and their ability to apply that knowledge. It also represents the failure of schools to do true QA on their main product, educating people.
It would be much better to monitor students throughout the duration of the course and grade them on their overall progress.
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:2)
I guess I have mixed feelings on this issue -- although I do agree with you that having a laptop at college is a worthwhile cause, I don't believe it should be an integral part of one's education. Simply because a good education has so little to do with a laptop. It's a handy tool, but the focus should remain on more imporant things.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:Flawed (Score:2)
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:2)
Integrate this from 5 to 12, integrate this from t0 to t1, show me an example graph with different values of w all on the same plot, and explain what this means show an increasing amount of knowledge on the student's part. The first is trivial with a calculator or laptop. The second requires several steps, and may need some work with it. The third could be done with a graphing calc, but it would still require some understanding to put things on the same graph. The fourth is the kind of analysis that you really want to get at, most notably in an Electromagnetics course, where you've got all sorts of great 'div, grad, curl and all that' equations, but what does any of it mean? I'm still happier with an engineer that can explain to me how something works than one who can crank through needless calculations, but cranking away is often part of the path to understanding.
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:2)
All that being said, your education is what you make of it. Laptops or not, graphical calculators or not, you still have the opportunity to learn a lot of neat and important things, and it's your decision to deprive yourself of that knowledge.
Re:Calulators in math class (Score:2)
Re:unfair testing (Score:2)
Don't that just make the questions harder? (Score:2)
One math class I had, an abstract algaebra class, our midterms was open-book, take home, and was handed to us four weeks before the test was due. And it had only one question.
Simple? HAH!
"Classify all simple rings of size less than or equal to order 60 up to isomorphism. Show all work."
I hated that class.
Open Answer test (Score:2)
Anybody ogling at how cool this is also realize how stupid it is?
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:2)
I did fairly well in the course, so I didn't complain even though I don't own a laptop. It seemed kind of unfair, however but I think my professor probably figured that it didn't matter that much. I mean after all there was a time limit, what were the students going to do, write each algorithm into a program and then try to run it on a computer to make sure they had the right answer?
No, the only thing I think the professor should've done was allow a whole notebook worth of notes, since the storage on the laptop was much greater than just one sheet of paper (or a TI-85.) (Please note, laptops were allowed but not modems, that's a big difference. My professor assumed "modem==outside help" and would allow rampant cheating.)
My personal opinion is that, in an ideal world, there would be a standard computer lab where everyone would take their exams on school computers.
Unlikely to happen at my school though, they'd rather spend money on the football team.
Re:Ugh. I'd rather not hire you. (Score:2)
You mean you've never accessed a site and had it be dog slow? You've never been unable to connect to a favorite site? What if the college network drags to a crawl because some new game demo just came out?
Setting up a special web site containing notes and such, yeah that's clever, but it's hardly the point. You would be much smarter to just photocopy the notes and bring them to class. Or put them on your laptop and search for the information in a local file. In a high pressure situation, you go for the most reliable solution.
Ugh. I'd rather go for it without the web. (Score:2)
Just one more game before I go back to the code... (Score:2)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:2)
Is this a good idea? (Score:2)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:2)
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:2)
It depends on the subject (Score:2)
This may serve to further weed out the dumb ones. When taking a test, the idiots would rely on the answers to the questions being on the net somewhere. Where the smart ones would actually study and spend the test time actually thinking about the answer.
I gotta wonder how they're going to keep people from cheating... What are they going to do, watch everyone like a hawk to make sure they're not emailing their friends?
I just think this is a bad idea. Maybe with a firewalled net appliance with no email program enabled you could keep people from cheating. Who knows? Maybe this is a useful life skill, learning how to rely on someone else's work to get ahead. But I'm a cynic.
It'd be fun to put up some good spider food for this purpose, fake answers and stupid ideas. You could have a lot of fun with this, messing around with freshmen... Did I mention that I'm both a cynic and a jerk? Thought so.
Then again, here I am about to put up an example program website, I guess I'll have to make it clear to everyone that they shouldn't use it for tests in comsci...
Re:Rose-Hulman (Score:2)
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Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:2)
Someone has to write your Perl in a Nutshell book, etc. etc. If we start relying on knowledge passed down from those who came before us in the form of machines and textbooks, we'll be screwed if we ever have to come up with something ourselves.
Just another way of looking at this..
Re:== Cheating. Humans as IO ports? (Score:2)
A) Reading text off the sreen is not a skill (I have software that will do that).
B) C&Ping text from one document to another is not a skill, (I can do that)
C) Figuring out how to quickly find data is not a skill. (I have search engines that will do that).
D)Organizing and filing this information is not a skill. (I have a database do that).
If you really want to set your sights on achieving such resume' items such as Google master, and Dogpile guru you're setting your sights to low, and people won't pay well for those services.
What companies need is people who have a deep understanding of the issues challenging the company, and how to take the next step with confidence. This requires a person to work well with a team to provide intuative answers everyday, all day, off the top of your head in order to form and consesis and build enough confidence to move forward.
If you're asked questions by your fellow co-workers and are constantly refering to a web site for trivial answers on the topic you've majored in, then you're selling me on the web site, not yourself. What the company would need to do, in that case, is get the team access to the sites you're refering to and stop wasting time asking you questions.
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Relying on those before us? You betcha! (Score:2)
The use of books came with the loss of oral history. The use of pocket calculators came with the loss of the slide rule.
As long as you know the basics, you're not screwed at all. The reason we do long multiplication (or learn poems) in school, for instance, isn't that we need the skill, these days, but to understand the principles so that (a) you get the understanding and (b) you can fall back on it if the calculator's batteries give out.
You can do without all the fancy Internet searches or computers or calculators or books. It would take a lot longer, though. In fact it would take so much longer that you wouldn't be able to come up with something new in the field in the first place.
What about understanding??? (Score:2)
Because you need to know how to ask the machine the right question.
I would put up big money on the bet that kids who learn to do calculus on paper are much better at applying their knowledge than kids who learn using calculators.
At some point, if you're lucky, you realize that education isn't about learning the answer to every question- it's about learning how to answer the questions.
-cwk.
Fine provided the test is designed for the web. (Score:2)
I'd tell the students my strategy beforehand so as not be tricking them.
As many others have already noted this would have to be firewalled and monitored apropriately to prevent cheating. Set it up for http requests only and snif all packets so you can investigate suspicious test answers for cheating.
In the real world, if your boss asks you a straitforward technical question you are expected to answer it immediately, if the question if difficult and you find the answer on the net you are considered resourceful.
Re:Hmmm, but - how do they...? (Score:2)
I'm sure similar netboot set-ups exist for the PC (or soon will).
Re:If I could have only cheated this way... (Score:2)
When I was in university (about a decade ago), we were usually allowed a 'cheat sheet' with formulas, constants, etc. on it. If you needed more than a few things from it, you were doomed anyways. Some exams were open book--bring in anything you want, except for a live person. Same results--if you really needed those textbooks, you probably weren't going to pass with or without them.
A good exam will test your knowledge, and even having a person on the other end of a phone or computer won't help that much if you don't know your stuff. There will be a few people who can successfully cheat and pass, just like there always have been. They'll continue to be in the minority.
Besides, when you get past first or second year university, there aren't many cheats left because the people remaining are paying LOTS OF MONEY to suffer through hell--they usually want to know the stuff they're supposed to be learning.
This is just like Take-home exams (Score:2)
I see the time frame is more restricted in this case, and also the bandwidth between the student is limited. I don't see how this make up for a wholy different kind of tests though.
oh yeah, and all this shit about how laptops split the poor from the rich is irrelevant to this story. This discussion happed when universities started first considering those kind of policies.
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Re:Dynabook (Score:2)
Rose-Hulman (Score:2)
Re:technology and education (Score:2)
What I meant in that paragraph is that much of the learning that required expensive private tutors just a century ago will be available cheaply (or freely) over computerized networks that allow students' curiosity to control learning.
And (risking mutilation from my family and friends who are teachers), I can imagine a day when computerized systems might be so advanced that they make most teachers obsolete. People worry about how "impersonal" distance education will be, forgetting that any distance education over the Internet will be far more engaging than the "personal" education common for much of human history (like scholastic monks learning from thick handwritten books in the Middle Ages) or even U.S. history (recall the image of Abe Lincoln reading books by firelight).
Also, many students have been scarred, not helped, by teachers and peers in our public education system, and this might provide some relief.
A. Keiper [tecsoc.org]
Time limited exams (Score:2)
How good of a programmer are you if it takes you three hours to write a "hello world" program?
Who wants to be a millionaire?? (Score:2)
You have it backward! (Score:2)
Why would you have people taking the exam help you? Why not set up a few "life lines" to experts in the field? Having classmates help would be like the blind leading the blind.
actual learning? (Score:3)
at a university? wow.
I mean this is a good thing. The questions asked will be on how to apply the knowledge, not the knowledge of the knowlege itself. That in itself is invaluable. I wish high schools worked that way but many are still stuck on the "To get the answer right, you must do it exactly how we taught. If you skip steps or do it another (valid) way, you will fail."
The part about requiring a laptop and wireless access is kind of stupid if you ask me. Why laptops? What's wrong with using the lab computers? Making each student procure a laptop is a little silly and tends to weed out the poor from the rich kids.
As far as the infrared sharing goes, You could bathe the room in randomly modulated infrared light. Or simpler, just get some bright orange electrical tape and cover the infrared port. Think of it though. All these guys are connected to the 'net. What's so hard about firing up an ICQ ActiveList or IRC or even plain email?
Curious fact that I have noticed (Score:3)
Sure, "Learning to Learn" sounds great. But realistically the way you learn to learn is to develop enough knowledge that anything you go to learn fits in a context. The specific facts usually don't matter so much as the context - if one person hears 1812 and thinks to the US invasion of Canada, and another thinks of Napoleon, both will have a context and will have a far easier time fitting the fact into their brains than someone with no grasp of history. (The one who thinks Napoleon will have an easier time with remembering what the 1812 overture is about though!)
I will leave the specifics of your calculus class for another time. Suffice it to say that if you do not conceptually understand how the math works, you won't be able to comprehend a lot of things down the road. But hey, you can still get a job for big bucks in Silicon Valley or on Wall St, so why does it matter?
Cheers,
Ben
Re:sure (Score:3)
In the real world, you don't start a project, and turn in the solution to your box 2 hours later. Exams are designed to test basic knowledge of and competency with the subject matter. They are not designed to test research skills, or skills at solving hard problems, in fact they are woefully inadequate at this.
Obviously, if you lack basic knowledge are woefully incompetent with your subject matter, you will not be of any use in "the real world".
Personally, if I'm running some sort of company that makes use in organic chemistry, I'm not going to care about any of my employess organic chemistry skill or knowledge,
I'd certainly hope they had some skill and/or knowledge. Obviously, it's not the only criterion, but surely, there's a minimum acceptable level ? As a mathematician, I have great problem solving skills, but I'm not much use as an organic chemist, because I don't know anything about chemistry.
Sure, asking for help is OK. Research projects ( which often involve or even require collaboration ) are a good idea. But an exam is not a research project.
so I think all that should matter in university classes is the ability to solve the problems in question
Yes, but how do you measure this accurately ? What if the student pays a tutor to solve the problems ? In this case, the student hasn't solved the problems, a tutor has. And the method the student has used ( paying a tutor to do it ) is not going to be a very succesful strategy in the work place.
There is certainly a place for collaboration, where students work with other students and jointly solve problems ( ie not one person doing the problem for someone else ).
Like it or not, if you're in a university class, you're not doing it for acadaemic purposes anymore.
The fact that grades have become so important makes it all the more important to make sure that the assesment mechanism is fair.
Re:unfair testing (Score:3)
When I took basic physics during my short college career, the professor let us bring a 3x5 card to class for the test. We could write anything we wanted on it -- the all-important formulas, the entire textbook, Verdi's opera scores.
Of course, the only thing that would really help were the formulas that applied to the subject matter, but you had to know which formula to use, and how to use it. The professor wanted to test our understanding of the subject matter, not our memorization skills.
Sure, one could possibly find the exact problem on-line, but unless this is an unlimited-time test, you'd be a lot better off knowing the subject matter (and perhaps looking up some formulas) than trying to do your studying during the test.
NOT smart, if you ask me. (Score:3)
Then again, if you trust anything you read on the Internet, you deserve to fail.
Written from my happy IR-equipped Thinkpad,
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://propaganda.themes.org [themes.org])
better calculator = better grade (Score:3)
This causes 2 problems. First off, the teachers are so dependent on their calculators they only know how to tell students which buttons to push. If Tommy bought a TI-86, he can just forget about getting help from the Professor because his buttons are different.
The second problem occurs when little Johnny buys a TI-92 calculator that is capable of solving more problems. He doesn't even need to understand calculus to pass the class... he just punches in the integral and presto! The answer appears magically. Meanwhile his fellow students who know what an integral is... are struggeling to find which sequence of buttons they need to push on their calculators to do the same thing.
End Result: Johnny gets an A because he spent $100 more on his calculator than Tommy. Tommy gets a C not because he can't find a derivative, but because he spent too much time trying to learn which buttons to push.
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:3)
And all for what? What does a student really learn from having a laptop? How to take care of a laptop? That's about it. Sometimes technology is just for technology's sake and it often has no place in our education system.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:More money = better grade at the end? (Score:3)
Surely until such time as everyone could afford a suitable laptop, or the school were prepared to provide the laptops, then this would be an extremely discriminatory practice?
We have a similar situation in my calculus class. 3 or 4 of us have TI-89s that will integrate or differentiate almost anything, which makes taking tests a matter of button pushing. I personally work everything out on pencil and paper and check myself with the calculator, but some don't.
It's unfair, but at the same time, why is it important to know how to do everything by hand if you know how to make a machine do it for you? You don't have to memorize the periodic table because you can look at it, you don't have to draw graphs by plotting (x,y) coordinates because a calculator will do it for you, and you don't have to spend hours memorizing regular expression syntax because you have your "Perl in a Nutshell" book on the desk, and you'll memorize eventually by doing anyway.
I think the ability to find information is going to become much more important than being able to memorize it. There's far too much out there to be able to know it all, and the people who will excel are the people who know where to find information they need in short order.
Unfortunately, I agree that this will widen the rich-poor gap in education. However I think this is an inherent fault of technology and its associated cost; it would be counterproductive to fight it, and turn out students who do everything the old-fashioned way because some people couldn't afford the tools to make it easier. You could hardly voice your support for a woodworking class that used only non-electric tools because not everyone could afford jigsaws and drills.
!= Cheating. (Score:3)
What if, instead of being tested on how much the brain can retain, we are tested on how fast the brain can use all of it's available resources to find the information it needs to complete a given problem. That tests creativity, adaptability and resourcefulness rather than just memorization. These traits are much more important in my eyes for life than memorization is.
Now that we are entering the information age and so much information is being linked together in such a way that is can be easily associated with other relevant information, the information itself becomes less important than its meaning with respect to the information associated with it.
For now, we will have to use laptops/cellmodems or workstations/ethernet, but eventually when we all have wireless implants, this kind of testing will be the only way to go since everyone will have instant access to all of the information they need and memorization will no longer be restricted to the unpredicatble nature of the human brain. at least I hope so...
//Phizzy
Re:Rose-Hulman (Score:3)
technology and education (Score:3)
A century ago, wealthy families would spend huge sums so tutors could pay individual attention to a student. Now we can envision a day when all students get individual attention, from computerized teaching systems that have instant access to information unobtainable scant years ago.
Already there are online - and accredited - high school and university classes. Soon, neither work nor age nor location will impede your continuing education.
What's more, technology is not just changing how we learn, but what we learn. As others here have noted, we're moving to a system wherein the teaching of information literacy is becoming more common. But what does that mean? Does it merely mean the ability to navigate your way to the information you need? Or does it mean we will become know-nothings, unable to make the simple associations of knowledge that are possible when facts have been crammed into our mind by brute force? Santayana famously said that those who are not familiar with history are "doomed to repeat it"; if you don't know history, but merely know where to find it, are you doomed to repeat it? It's up in the air.
We have a number of articles on this topic on our Education page [tecsoc.org].
A. Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society [tecsoc.org]
Exam software. (Score:3)
But you have to run some software from to take the exam. [examsoft.com]
This software will prevent someone from loading other packages during the exam. I guess they think that a lawyer would cheat on a bar exam. Nah, of course not. :)
Flawed (Score:3)
There are several reasons why this idea is flawed. Firstly, a fair exam requires that nobody in the exam can communicate with anyone else in the world during the exam. Anyone with a basic knowledge of cgi programming could easily cheat by punching the questions into a web form, having arranged previously for someone not taking the exam to collect this input and send some valid answers
Secondly, equal opportunity. Laptops aint cheap.
Thirdly, security. There's always going to be one kid in the class who leaves a script somewhere on the net to take out half his classmates. Even one successful DoS attack per exam would make the technique unacceptable. Firewalls? Well, how about using a small 2.4GHz frequency jammer. You can at least postpone the exam.
I mean, if you're going to allow connectivity and communication, you might as well take away the time limit and call it "course work"
When you have a hammer... (Score:4)
A good education teaches you ways to think, and solve problems, not just to use tools. We "geeks" are often guilty of viewing technology as an end in itself, and not simply as a tool, which is what it is.
Colleges too often fall victim to academic fads, the most recent of which is this apply-technology-to-everything silliness. The real tragedy is that in the rush to embrace the latest Big Thing, money often gets redirected away from things like hiring more or better faculty.
-cwk.
unfair testing (Score:4)
-j
Re:Rose-Hulman (Score:4)
Yes, that's fantastic. Good education could do with another way of weeding out the poor.
More money = better grade at the end? (Score:5)
Surely until such time as everyone could afford a suitable laptop, or the school were prepared to provide the laptops, then this would be an extremely discriminatory practice?
While the idea is kinda neat, the fact is in an exam like that the person with the better laptop who could (for example) view more information on screen or get audio data along with plain text, would have a distinct and unfair advantage?
Just seems that way to me...
Calulators in math class (Score:5)
Interestingly, one of the other students in the class took it uppon himself to memorize the button locations on his calculator that produced the desired result. When his calculator broke and was replaced with a new one (one of those old TIs with the row of red numbers) he was lost, and had to learn the interface all over again. The problem there was, he was concentrating on the answer instead of the process (the what, not the why).
The same problem still exists today with the use of internet gateways in the learning process. It can speed things up a lot, but the emphisis should be on the content, not the means of aquireing it. Supose little johnny builds himself a well anotated bookmark file of content rich sites that provide him with the answeres being posed in the class. This may get him through the semester, but without understanding the relationship between those answeres (the why behind the what) nothing is learnd. Sure, little johny has learned how to query his favorite search engine and filter content, but after graduation, when he's asked one day to come up with a presentation on the subject he's majored in from a hotel room, with no net access, the depth of his understanding will be tested.
Everyday, little johny will be relied upon from his co-workers as a source of knowledge on the topic he majored on. Being able to provide the team with the answers they need (on the fly, every day, all day )is a the key to a successfull team.
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