School to allow iPods, internet in exams

Presbyterian Ladies' College at Croydon will let year nine English students use the hi-tech equipment during exams first, before rolling out the program across all subjects by the end of the year.

English teacher Dierdre Coleman, who is dean of students for years seven to nine at the school, said the move was about "redefining" cheating, and would allow modern day technology to be fairly incorporated into modern education.

"In their working lives they will never need to carry enormous amounts of information around in their heads. What they will need to do is access information from all their sources quickly and they will need to check the reliability of their information," Ms Coleman told Fairfax.

"In terms of preparing them for the world, we need to redefine our attitudes towards traditional ideas of cheating."

Students will be encouraged to access information from the internet and podcasts played on MP3s as part of 40-minute tasks, but must cite all sources.

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Technology is the way of the future, keep up or be left behind. When i started high school, no one was allowed to use calculators, but by the time i sat for my HSC we had to have scientific calculators, times change, technology is ever improving and becoming more mainstream, give it 5 years or so and every student will have their own laptop, iPod and Phone (if they don't already), most jobs today involve computers in some way and we should be preparing our youth to use this technology efficiently. Most 10y.o. kids today get exposed to the same amount of knowledge as their grandparents did in their lifetime, we shouldn't try and hold them back, we should be encouraging the use of technology in our schools, we just need to find a fair way to utilize this technology in our teaching curriculum so that every student has the same opportunities.

Why not just give them the answers then we can have all the students passing achieving high marks and making our education system look like its producing freaking geniuses. HSC 1984, Pens Pencils Calculator (with Cos Sin Tan functions only) and your brain. by 2010 hey kids bring what ever you need to pass we don't care as long as the school looks good and the marks you get are high. I have seen basic job, home loan and credit applications where people under the age of 24 can barely write their address spelt correctly, let alone their qualifications spelt properly and cannot conduct basic arithmetic processes. What does that mean for the future School leavers

using the internet in some exams may be acceptable but there is no chance that it will be desirable for EVERY exam in EVERY subject. the poor sod so confidently proposing this hasn't realised that the main source for most of the candidates will be OTHER CANDIDATES in the exam. via msn messenger etc. or mum at home on her computer. sigh...what can you do with the education of our young in the hands of such unsophisticated morons?

It's not a matter of being afraid or embracing the technology around us. It's a matter of being able do the most basic of curriculum studies without outside help, ie reading, writing and arithmetic. Especially writing and arithmetic. How may students actually use complete words instead of shortforms as when sending messages via mobile phones. How many students can perform basic addition and subtraction problems without using a calculator or till. I have come accross some young people who cannot even total the amount of coins given to them along with notes to pay for groceries, this is before they enter the amount into the till that then gives them the person the change required to be given back to the customer. What the! Learn the basics first without the help of gadgets then master them. It is just common sense after all.

Sounds to me like all this will prove is that the students can copy paste information and not show that they fully grasp or understand the content. While in the workforce yes they may have access to 'google' things they need you also need the knowledge to assess the information as reliable as anyone can put whatever they want onto the internet, not necessarily correct information. Lastly what will happen to them once in the workforce if they have to go outside without a computer and be expected to use their subject knowledge to complete the job at hand if that knowledge is based on being able to 'google' themselves the answers? i wouldn't be hiring them.

Anything other than your brain should not be allowed in the classroom. Why are students paying so much in fees when all they need is an ipod or computer. They won't even need teachers at this rate, and please, don't make up any more excuses for kids to get away with using their brains.

Although I think all children should be taught problem solving skills and how to use the internet etc in researching and accessing information just as previous generations were taught to use an encyclopedia or the library I still think there should exams that test knowledge retention. How else to we exercise our brains if we are never required to remember anything of what we have read or heard? The brain has short and long term memory functions lets continue to use them!

Cheating is cheating. Exams are a test of knowledge in your own head. I failed math 30 years ago because I could not show the formula I used to get my answers. I did the calculations in my head and was called a cheat then but, I didn't cheat. That is ok, but the criteria needs to benefit ones future and not be detrimental our society. This school encouraging technology to cheat will lower the standard and employers will be engaging young staff on a hit-and-miss basis as to whether they know their stuff or not if this method of cheating is allowed.

Application of knowledge has long been a much more valuable skill than the mere retention of knowledge. I imagine the students are still going to need to apply the info they find to a certain set of circumstances so I think it's a great test of their resourcefulness to see if they can solve a problem within the time constraints of an exam by using the tools they can expect to have in the real world. On the whole, I've found the kids coming into the workforce nowadays lack this very initiative - to find out what they don't know themselves.

Society relies way too much on technology.. Sure, it's an important skill to know how to research for something and retrieve information efficiently, but what happens when there is a Blackout? Or you lose your mobile phone? Or if you were in a place where access to technology was limited? (i.e. third world countries)? It is more important to learn the material rather than learn where to retrieve it from. In the end, you will have around 80 English exams with all the content stolen straight from Wikipedia. Frankly, I think this idea is stupid.

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