Should Students Be Allowed to Use Google During Exams?

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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It usually takes a while for education to catch up with technology. It wasn’t that long ago when calculators were banned from testing and all that was allowed was pencil and paper. The Internet is used in everyday classroom activities and most certainly for research and term papers, so why not during testing?

Though he doesn’t think that the Internet will be ushered into exams any time soon, he does say that it’s “inevitable” one day.
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Not when you can pose natural language questions to services like Wolfram Alpha, Siri, Cortana and Google Now.
 
Though he doesn’t think that the Internet will be ushered into exams any time soon, he does say that it’s “inevitable” one day.
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I have been allowed, several times, to use the internet/google on a college exam.
 
Oh and Watson... you know the one that beat Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in two rounds of Jeopardy.
 
Safety said:
Not when you can pose natural language questions to services like Wolfram Alpha, Siri, Cortana and Google Now.
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This.

If google fu is allowed to be used on tests, then the tests will naturally devolve into a 3 way battle between your professor's wit, your google fu, and Google's search algorithms.

That defeats the entire purpose of testing. If there is anything getting tested, it ain't your headspace knowledge about the actual material.

I love how this current generation is shaping up the next generation (my workforce competition) as soft-skinned, spineless invertebrates that can hardly read, write, or math. It's gonna be fun.
 
Ah, no. If that had always been the case, then where would we get the information that Google finds? The only exception I would give is for real life training but, then the answers would still be only as good as the persons ability to troubleshoot.
 
atp1916 said:
That defeats the entire purpose of testing. If there is anything getting tested, it ain't your headspace knowledge about the actual material.

I love how this current generation is shaping up the next generation (my workforce competition) as soft-skinned, spineless invertebrates that can hardly read, write, or math. It's gonna be fun.
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True, at the rate things are going it won't be long before we lose the ability to actually understand and apply many of the basic skills/concepts needed for modern technology to function. Automation will end up killing off the knowledge base and eventually people will start to look at technology as something magical as they are unable to understand how it functions or how to fix it when it breaks or how to recreate it. The era of lostech will come once more.
 
No ... even if they did it would just make the tests harder ... humanities type tests would become essay in nature and technical tests would require solving equations and completing designs that require knowledge beyond what one can find in an internet search ... college is for the most part a maturing process, if it becomes watered down with just teaching someone how to use the internet then companies will just abandon it in favor of internships or some other controlled maturing process (which might not be a bad thing either)
 
kbrickley said:
No ... even if they did it would just make the tests harder ... humanities type tests would become essay in nature and technical tests would require solving equations and completing designs that require knowledge beyond what one can find in an internet search ...
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Yes... because then they can then make the tests harder. The average exam nowadays is mix of trivial multiple choice questions that you can cram for in an hour and very subjective essay questions that you can usually BS your way through.

The questions on open-net exams I've taken have been much more challenging.

The only way the internet/google can really short circuit the exam process is if the students can copy/paste an answer or collaborate. I had an open-net exam once in which a large group of the class decided they would share answers in a google doc. I opened up the doc and most of the answers were wrong. I aced the exam. The rest of the class did not do so well.
 
At that point it just becomes a test of the student's Google Fu skills. That and maybe their Grammar Ninja skills if they have to mask plagiarism. No need to study...so party on dudes! :rolleyes:

How did we ever survive exams without so much as a calculator, let alone all the answers at our fingertips?

...and the dumbing down continues; as this would be the stripping away of problem solving skills.
 
Memorization is not important in the modern world, tool usage is, and google will be available on a daily basis in virtually every profession.

All good schools are allowing open book studies and let you bring a cheat sheet, but that won't allow you to pass the test in a good school.

Crappy schools with stupid teachers rely on memorization of basic facts, facts that will be forgotten for lack of use within a few years and serves absolutely no purpose in the modern world. What is important is management of such knowledge, proper tool usage, and focusing on a perfect understanding of the core concepts which you absolutely don't have the time to LEARN while sitting there taking a test.

Now my only concern though with online connectivity and computer usage during test taking is one of cheating in the form of having someone else feed answers that does know the material. Having a sheet with all the physics formulas at a glance via google search is fine, but having someone help you solve the differential equation to determine how much weight is on the front landing gear of a tricycle aircraft given its weight distribution is not.
 
Ducman69 said:
Memorization is not important in the modern world, tool usage is, and google will be available on a daily basis in virtually every profession.

All good schools are allowing open book studies and let you bring a cheat sheet, but that won't allow you to pass the test in a good school.

[...]

Now my only concern though with online connectivity and computer usage during test taking is one of cheating in the form of having someone else feed answers that does know the material. Having a sheet with all the physics formulas at a glance via google search is fine, but having someone help you solve the differential equation to determine how much weight is on the front landing gear of a tricycle aircraft given its weight distribution is not.
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I also was allowed to bring in ref' material for major exams. Strict policy on plagiarism/cheating enforced via allowed ref' materials - no rock to hide-behind if tempted to steal other's work.

These were NOT multiple-choice tests... More about writing an essay on-the-spot, under deadline, with real-time review/comments. Professor would walk by and review our materials. Sometimes commenting, teasing, and laughing at the texts(s). That was a fun class - though not for the squeamishly thin-skinned, blue-ribbon children.
 
Evolutionary pressure is going to eliminate our ability to maintain any knowledge in our brains.
 
I say just let them. Those who cheat are destined to fail anyways. There is a reason why they couldn't rely on their brain which is the best tool there is. Once they get out into the world, the market will make the proper correction and weed out these useless human being.
 
ManofGod said:
Ah, no. If that had always been the case, then where would we get the information that Google finds? The only exception I would give is for real life training but, then the answers would still be only as good as the persons ability to troubleshoot.
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Just because people use information on the internet, doesn't mean, more information can't be generated. It's not like all thinking would cease, and only information from the internet will remain.

It might lessen, maybe... but who knows if that is really the case.
 
Why not allow other people to take the tests for the students? After all the point of a test/exam is to see how much knowledge you've accrued on that particular subject and if you're finding the answers after the fact you obviously have none. Ergo, they're as well off allowing a person with the requisite knowledge to take the exam on the student's behalf.
 
I'm of two minds about that.

To put things into perspective, I'm pushing 70 REAL hard, and when I was in school the closest thing to a 'personal calculator' was the slide rule.

Back then we did everything with a pencil, paper and some memorization. Sadly it seems that the schools have abandoned that. That's a shame, and I think that being able to do basic math, addition, subtraction multiplication and division by the 'old fashioned' way is a skill that should definitely still be taught, and that calculators should only be used after the basic skills have been mastered. Doing it to 'old' way gives you the concept of why you get the answer you get. Plus it gives you an alternative when "the computer crashes" or the power goes out.

For more advanced learning, once the BASIC concepts have been learned, I have no problem with using calculators, computers, or even the internet.

With as much knowledge that is available today, no one person can learn it all.

Learning how to FIND the answer to your question/problem is a valuable skill and using the internet to do so is, I think perfectly acceptable.
 
GaryS said:
I also was allowed to bring in ref' material for major exams. Strict policy on plagiarism/cheating enforced via allowed ref' materials - no rock to hide-behind if tempted to steal other's work.

These were NOT multiple-choice tests... More about writing an essay on-the-spot, under deadline, with real-time review/comments. Professor would walk by and review our materials. Sometimes commenting, teasing, and laughing at the texts(s). That was a fun class - though not for the squeamishly thin-skinned, blue-ribbon children.
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This is how I conduct my exams.

Most of my students are going into some form of law enforcement or legal profession. Every single one of them are going to rely on external references when they get into their career. My thoughts are they need critical thinking skills to make sense of what they're trying to enforce and how to correctly apply them to the situation.

Creating exams that test 4th order thinking skills, however, is time consuming as does grading them. Most of the universities that I've attended and taught at now require grades to be submitted a mere days after the quarter/semester ends. It doesn't give much time to read through hundreds of essays let alone grade them effectively. I'm not surprised that my colleagues opt for the publisher provided multi-choice "tests."
 
not unless you can use the book too i remember exams i could use the book on and generally i was able to finish before everyone still.
 
This was mainly directed at the high school level.

I am all for using the internet for a collage exam, the amount of information needed to do anything in collage is huge and the ability to take that and form your own responses to the question is needed.

High school and below on the other hand, you do not need google to figure out a2+b2=c2, that romeo loves juliet, or that Holden Caulfield is a self centered twat who won't ever get anywhere in life.

I recently found out that my 8yr old nephew is allowed to have his phone, and use it WHILE TAKING TESTS IN MATH CLASS. Seriously? the next generation is fucked.
 
captaindiptoad said:
This was mainly directed at the high school level.

I am all for using the internet for a collage exam
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Yeah, but I had a collage exam all the way back in middle-school. I mostly used pictures from my summer vacation, and got a check plus for it.
 
captaindiptoad said:
... I recently found out that my 8yr old nephew is allowed to have his phone, and use it WHILE TAKING TESTS IN MATH CLASS. Seriously? the next generation is fucked.
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Yeah, that's just cruel to the child.

At that point in their education the most advanced thing kids his age should need is an eraser at the end of the pencil.

Back in the 70's when I was programming in Assembler Language on IBM main frames, a lot of non programmers thought that you had to be good at math to be a programmer. That wasn't the case. You just had to understand how math worked. Like if you multiplied a 3 digit number by a 2 digit number, the maximum size of the result would be a 5 digit number, so you made sure that you set up the result field for 5 digits so you wouldn't overflow a 4 digit field, or waste memory by setting up a 6 digit field, or waste memory.

THey don't teach anything like that any more.
 
RAF_OldBuzzard said:
Back then we did everything with a pencil, paper and some memorization. Sadly it seems that the schools have abandoned that. That's a shame, and I think that being able to do basic math, addition, subtraction multiplication and division by the 'old fashioned' way is a skill that should definitely still be taught, and that calculators should only be used after the basic skills have been mastered.
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I'm not as old as you, but I do remember that we always had to "show our work" for math problems. The answer was not enough, you had to prove how you got it.

I find it disturbing that many schools these days aren't even teaching cursive writing. Since you can print or type everything I guess they think you don't need to know how to write anymore. :rolleyes: Does printing your name really even constitute a signature?
 
Nearly all people in real life are completely incapable of doing most of the shit they learned in high school. Seriously try it. You know the GRE, that great test people take to get into grad school, most people have to study for that. But if you look at it and read you realize that all the shit in that stupid test is literally 10th grade level shit. So why do college students whom are nearly freaking done with their bachelors have to study for 10th grade level crap? The answer is because they cant do it. They have not practiced these things in so long and so they don't know how.

You will always want a select few members of society to know how to do things the old fashioned way, that way if some sort of Armageddon hits people will be able to rederive much of the proofs, and theory we take for granted. But the masses of people just don't need to do this and actually don't know how, even if taught they wont be able to rederive it. Its the select few math maticians etc.. that can and will be able to. I can go right now today into the grocery store and stop 10 people and I bet only 1 of those 10 would even be able to do much of the algebra they learned to apply it to figuring out problems on what is better to buy in the grocery store. That person will probably already know it and always will regardless of if shit was looked up via google or not.

One of the things everyone seems to forget is ALL schooling is essentially bullshit. It doesn't prepare you for the real world. Can you honestly tell me that there was any sort of time in your real life when you worked a real job where the skills you learned for how to game a multiple choice test were useful? Can you honestly say that learning how to write an essay in 10 minutes during a final exam was actually something you did in a real job, rofl no, no boss walks up to you and asks you to write an essay in 10 minutes, they give you a day or more at least and you can google anything you damn well please. If you have that one rare job where that happens I think you should be in a special career with special training directed at that.

School is supposed to prepare you for the workforce, prepare you for real life. There is nothing wrong with teachers trying to mimic that. Its up to them to write the test in such a way that its not so easy someone can pass it with 100% without doing a thing.
 
In 30 years, I have never had a job where my boss gave me a project and told me to do it using only what I remembered. I think in college and even at the high school level it is fine to allow students to research questions with any means at their disposal. After all just because Google gives them an answer, doesn't mean it is the right one. Knowing how to figure that out is a good skill to learn.
 
Axehandler said:
I think this is a stupid idea.

Nuff said.
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Yup, why not let kids before access to the library when they had tests?

This is the kind of thing that to me is not helping human, why remember anything, just google it when you need it...
 
snowcrash said:
I say just let them. Those who cheat are destined to fail anyways. There is a reason why they couldn't rely on their brain which is the best tool there is. Once they get out into the world, the market will make the proper correction and weed out these useless human being.
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The downside is they would still have a college degree ... although they might ultimately fail that degree opens a lot of doors ... with no process to effectively rescind a degree once it is granted the schools do hold some responsibility to protect their own reputation and that of their Alumni by insuring that their graduates have the basic skills they need to succeed ;)
 
I had many engineering professors allow open book/open notes/open computer for tests during my undergrad. It doesn't affect the outcome, many people still failed. If you don't know and understand the material prior to the test, having reference material doesn't really do shit for success.
 
RAF_OldBuzzard said:
Yeah, that's just cruel to the child.

At that point in their education the most advanced thing kids his age should need is an eraser at the end of the pencil.

Back in the 70's when I was programming in Assembler Language on IBM main frames, a lot of non programmers thought that you had to be good at math to be a programmer. That wasn't the case. You just had to understand how math worked. Like if you multiplied a 3 digit number by a 2 digit number, the maximum size of the result would be a 5 digit number, so you made sure that you set up the result field for 5 digits so you wouldn't overflow a 4 digit field, or waste memory by setting up a 6 digit field, or waste memory.

THey don't teach anything like that any more.
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Actually, common core standards address that and it shows up in curriculum now. Hate it all you want, but common core math is much better than the 'old' standards. Is there some stupid ass CC curriculum out there? Hell yes there is, but that was the case before CC was around as well. Doesn't change the fact that kids are actually learning how to understand math rather than rote memorization.
 
captaindiptoad said:
I recently found out that my 8yr old nephew is allowed to have his phone, and use it WHILE TAKING TESTS IN MATH CLASS. Seriously? the next generation is fucked.
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That's just a shitty teacher, and doubt this is actually endorsed by administration. There was a teacher that did something similar at the school my wife teaches at and she was taken out of the classroom for the rest of the year.
 
why memorize what you can look up

learning to ask the right questions and find the RIGHT answers is imo more importent then just memorizing facts
 
captaindiptoad said:
I recently found out that my 8yr old nephew is allowed to have his phone, and use it WHILE TAKING TESTS IN MATH CLASS. Seriously? the next generation is fucked.
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or are they infinitely smarter because of it...
if he knows how to find the correction information to the question that would make him smarter then you

welcome to the singularity
 
Elios said:
or are they infinitely smarter because of it...
if he knows how to find the correction information to the question that would make him smarter then you

welcome to the singularity
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I disagree in this case, letting an 8 year old kid to use a smartphone for 2nd/3rd grade level math is just letting them get used to a crutch. A smartphone provides little utility for learning in this situation.
 
Grahamkracka said:
I had many engineering professors allow open book/open notes/open computer for tests during my undergrad. It doesn't affect the outcome, many people still failed. If you don't know and understand the material prior to the test, having reference material doesn't really do shit for success.
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It reminds me of that Einstein quote, with him mentioning that he never saw the point of rote memorization when you can just grab a book and look it up. Applying this concept to today's world of every shred of information at our finger tips via the internet and it becomes somewhat obvious just how silly it is to require individuals to learn to remember facts.

Facts and information are completely useless if you lack the skills to do something with and understand them, as your example demonstrates.

Personally I never got much schooling beyond HS, but I find that I do not miss it at all. Having learned valuable skills on my own without being slowed down by rote memorization, I find that I have better general knowledge, am more adapt at finding information and possess more skills than those who went through regular education.
 
Another element people need to consider is grading ... although the tests that require the student to regurgitate materials from the lessons may not serve as much purpose outside of the college environment, they are fairly objective to score (if the answer is b squared then it is either right or wrong) ... with open internet exams the questions would become expository in nature or in the case of engineering, more design centric (design a circuit that meets these parameters, etc) ... it might be just as useless in the real world but now the scoring is more subjective and up to the professor to judge the quality of the answer ... there is no easy answer for this one and nothing will make everyone happy
 
Kids these days don't even know how lucky they are when it comes to resources as they have had it at their fingertips all their lives. My only resource was the fricken library and finding shit was a bitch. So no.
 
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