Cheating 2.0

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Academic integrity is the cornerstone of the best we have to offer in higher education. Integrity flourishes in an environment that encourages mutual respect, fairness, trust, responsibility, and a love of learning and that is maintained by safeguards like clear expectations, fair and relevant assessments, and vigilant course management (McCabe and Pavela 2004). Compelling evidence of widespread academic dishonesty among Net-Generation students threatens to undermine both the environment of trust that nourishes integrity and the safeguards that ensure it.

“The Net Generation Cheating Challenge,” Valerie Milliron and Kent Sandoe, Innovate, August/September 2008

There is almost too much to say about this article. On the one hand, I think it seems strangely naive to imagine a pre-net world in which students rarely cheated. So maybe there’s no real change at all. On the other hand, this problem is the Achilles heal of online education, and I am not sure if there’s a solution.

The author’s proposals are both vague and common-commonsensical: create a culture of learning that makes cheating the least attraction option, use technology and smartly designed assignments to make cheating more difficult. It’s exactly the same thing strategy used pre-net.

What goes unacknowledged in the article is that communication technologies are beginning to break down the old educational meritocracy itself, with it’s close links among property, learning, and grades. These breakdowns make the machinery visible.

Posted in: Composition, Language, Writing

The Dream of (Canadian) Centralization

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A Gartner analyst thinks Canada’s natural resources and cooler temperature can help it take advantage of the growing cloud computing trend to provide services and Web applications.

The country has an estimated server installed base of more than one million units, and in the next five years, the market will demonstrate incremental growth typical of a mature market, said Jeffrey Hewitt, vice-president of research with Stamford, Conneticut-based Gartner Inc.

“But is there a way in Canada for that to be boosted beyond that standard incremental projection?” asked Hewitt.

He thinks the country’s years of investment in hydro electric power facilities and ambient temperatures will enable data centres to be powered and subsequently cooled. And, he said, the concerns around power and cooling are only getting bigger as Web content grows with video sharing sites like YouTube. Therefore, the country can take its hydro electric infrastructure to “another level” and extend it to the Web, said Hewitt.

Canada primed for cloud computing: Gartner | The Industry Standard, Kathleen Lau, ComputerWorld Canada.

I used to work at a school that dreamed the dream of centralization and not surprisingly, it was a disaster. This dream is a variant of the automated factory dream; the idea that one day we can get rid of all of those pesky, complaining, expensive workers.

I’m no Luddite. This dream has to do with the idea of a pure profit, divorced from human labor, not with technology. Technology is simply the dominant strategy of the dream in our time. In universities, the dream is as strong as anywhere else, maybe stronger.

Imagine a school without teachers and their pesky unions! Actually, though, the dream as I experienced it had to do with the expense of support people. We had a nightmare of a classroom computer system that needed to be updated. That was clear.

It was also clear that the reason the system was a nightmare was that there was not enough support personnel. Somehow, someone heard about “thin clients”– computers that were, in effect, nothing but a monitor and a box with some flash memory. The software lives on a central server.

It sounds so great. Obviously, the real problem isn’t a lack of support personnel, it’s those wacky students and teachers who keep messing up the system. The “thin clients” made sure that no one could change anything important. It made support almost unnecessary!

The dream was, of course, utterly wrong. In fact the new system was even more of a nightmare than the old, outdated computers. If one thing went wrong somewhere on the network, none of the computers would work. Another dream come true.

The idea of putting the servers in cold places is a good one, but I think it’s also important to think very carefully about cloud computing as the latest instance of the dream of centralization. It’s fine to put all our You-Tube videos in the same place. I’m not sure the same holds true for much else.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Composition, Economics, Professional, Union, Writing

The Myth of Multitasking

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In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” To Chesterfield, singular focus was not merely a practical way to structure one’s time; it was a mark of intelligence. “This steady and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.”

Christine Rosen, “The Myth of Multitasking,” The New Atlantis, Spring 2008

I have to say that, despite being a dyed-in-the-wool computers and writing guy, I find this sort of discussion refreshing. In my own work, I find that a limited amount of multitasking is very helpful. Right now, for example, I am listening to WILL’s program Sidestep. (It’s pretty good, but amateurish in some ways).

I discovered as a teenager that this kind of white noise is helpful. On the other hand, after working online full time for a few years I have discovered that it’s best to turn off email while I am writing or commenting on papers. I sometimes put on a video instead of a podcast, but I usually listen more than watch.

There’s also been a few stories recently about “no email Fridays” and the like which seems to confirm that multitasking can be counter-productive. I am not sure that I would go as far as Chesterfield, but it may be true that what we thought was helpful is going to turn out to be much less so.

I sense an economic blind spot. I have been thinking about Twitter in these terms, too. A colleague, for example, shared this post (via listserv) on “25 Twitter Tips for College Students.” What I find so interesting is that each item on the list is either unnecessary or better done in other ways.

Why have so many online “presences” at all? I think Twitter– and the Iphone– illustrate the absurdities that arise when consumerism meets technological fetishism. I’m hoping for a backlash that focuses on using these tools well.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Composition, Language, Online Places, Professional, Writing

Class and Broadband

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While most schools in the United States (in fact, 98 percent) have basic Internet access, for many that access is cripplingly slow–too slow to accommodate technology-driven educational initiatives–according to a new report from the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA). The group is recommending certain baseline figures for adequate bandwidth for schools and proposing policy changes to effect upgrades over the next five to seven years.

SETDA, an education technology advocacy group based in Maryland, released its report, High-Speed Broadband Access for All Kids: Breaking Through the Barriers, to call attention to the “critical” issue of broadband access in schools and to get stakeholders prepared to achieve growth in the quality of broadband that schools need in order to take technology-based learning to the next level.

Dave Nagel, Tech Association Calls for Greater Broadband Access for Schools, the Journal, June 2008

This is a report that I wanted to note even though I don’t have much to add. It seems like more of the same. I think, though, that we can’t be reminded often enough that whenever we hear about a problem, say, the lack of funding for public schools, the impact is always shaped by class.

I am reminded of this each time I read a piece celebrating Web 2.0. There was a nice reflection on talking with students about these sorts of issues earlier this month at the Education and Class blog. I liked the excerpt from Borderland, as well as the comment from Urban Scientist.

Posted in: Composition, Economics, Language, Writing