New Search Engine Makes Cheating Easier
Sunday June 14, 2009
Some online professors are concerned about the new search engine WolframAlpha and its potential to give students the answers to assignments. WolframAlpha calls itself a "computational knowledge engine" and has the ability to calculate problems and deliver solutions - even for questions that no other user has ever asked.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:
Perhaps online professors will need to come up with a new way for students to prove that they're working on their own. Or, perhaps it's time to embrace technology and let students use the problem-solving programs that will only become more common in the future.
See Also:
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:
"The latest dilemma facing professors is whether to let students turn to a Web site called WolframAlpha, which not only solves complex math problems, but also can spell out the steps leading to those solutions. In other words, it can instantly do most of the homework and test questions found in many calculus textbooks...Since WolframAlpha demonstrates how math equations are solved, students could easily get around the "show your work" requirement that is often mandated to make sure a calculator isn't used.
Unlike Google, WolframAlpha features a supercharged math engine based on the Mathematica software used by many researchers. It makes a graphing calculator look like a slide rule."
Perhaps online professors will need to come up with a new way for students to prove that they're working on their own. Or, perhaps it's time to embrace technology and let students use the problem-solving programs that will only become more common in the future.
See Also:
Comments
There’s a simple way to stop most of this nonsense. The professors should make students to the work during class time or set up “labs” in the class schedule where the students will have to do the work. It wouldn’t be too hard to have a lab where a student has to physically sign in and sign out and be proctored (like the old blue book exam days) and do the work there. Computers could be allowed, but this site could be blocked. Professors could also check work to see whether all the work looks alike in certain respects.
The problem isn’t getting more than reasonable calculator or computer aid. The problem is that students apparently don’t want to take the time to learn well, so professors should “help” them change their attitude.
I use to have a similar problem with writing assignments as a college instructor. It was almost impossible to track whether a student was buying a paper or asking about exam questions from students who had taken the exam. The solution was simple – I added essay questions to my exams and only I knew the questions and they were different for each class, and I added enough writing “additions” to the research paper assignments to make sure that each student had to do some original work even if it was on a paper they had bought online.
Professors are creative enough to solve these problems. They just have to be willing to do some extra work. In the long term – the brain is far smarter than a computer program.
The long-term outcome is also important – students who know something.