ChaCha.com and the New Age of Digital Cheating in the Classroom

Classroom cheating has taken a new digital turn. An article about a free cellphone service called ChaCha caught my eye last week. Text any question to 242242 and ChaCha promises to provide the answer to virtually any question within minutes, be it math, science, politics and even directions to the nearest café, they have the answer.  Go ahead try it now!

 

ChaCha has a hired network of 25,000 “friends” to help anyone with any question. Imagine the possibilities, imagine the benefits…imagine the repercussions.  A lot of academics are a bit alarmed that some students might use this new service for cheating in the classroom. ChaCha claims that when they created the service cheating was the last thing on their mind.

It doesn’t really matter what the service is for, I’m pretty sure they only had good intentions, the thing is it can be used for cheating, “digital cheating” that is. So what can be done?  Banning cellphones seems to be out of the question. Most schools have no restriction regarding cellphone use so it’s up to the professors to lay down the law.  A professor at Rowan thinks it’s no big deal, if a student wants to cheat, ChaCha is not the only way, there are what you call conventional cheating methods i.e. cheat sheets, copying from neighbors and the like. But does that mean we’ll let these students use the ChaCha service in class?  Ed Burns a professor from Delaware says otherwise, if the student’s cellphone goes off inside the classroom the student is asked to leave and marked absent for the day.

 

Digital cheating or conventional cheating?  Can you believe this? Students now have a choice!  I agree with the idea that we should not focus on the source of cheating materials, or trying to put a stop in the advancement of technology, but instead make our students learn about classroom integrity, the value of NOT CHEATING. It will be much easier to teach your students not to cheat rather than to employ ways and means of protecting them from cheating temptations.  We should not be alarmed that the number of students who admitted cheating digitally increased some 15%, we should be alarmed that these students had the gall to admit that they cheated.

Digital cheating is not so cool anyway, testing the ChaCha service showed that out of 6 questions it only got 3 correct answers, that’s a 50% accuracy rate.  If I were you and you have racked your brain but still can’t remember the answer, take a guess, guessing it will probably give you a 50% chance that you’ll get the answer right.  What’s cool is you didn’t cheat :)

Comments

[wlNels]

That article actually said that conventional methods of cheating were more prominent than digital methods (although digital is steeply on the rise). ChaCha is no different than doing their own internet search, or texting a friend for the answer. There will always be tools that can be used for cheating regardless of their intended purpose.
Cheating is not an epidemic, it's been happening for a long time and will keep happening. It's wrong and students need to know that it's wrong rather than professors trying frantically to prevent it superficially (like by banning cell phones).

[Nan]

Students will find a way to cheat whether it is with a cell phone or without. Perhaps the bigger issue here is why does education reward memorization as opposed to learning and applying information. Shouldn't the onus be on the educator to construct measures that adequately determine if learning has transpired?

[Tom Krieglstein]

I agree with Nan. In the real world, what is the advantage of memorization of facts? I think teaching students how to use ChaCha as a tool to quickly get answers they don't know would be the real reward.

[Kyle James]

ChaCha is an interested service, but it never comes up as something that I would have even considered asking work or school related questions. Hum...

Usually it's the kind of thing we use for trivia, settling an argument, or some historical information about where we are. As you pointed it isn't always right so this is almost a good thing considering the case your presenting. Good discussion.

[wlNels]

Nowadays the responsibility of proving credibility lies on the reader, instead of the author. It's not ChaCha's fault if the answer is not satisfactory for a research report, it's up to the reader to back their facts up. It goes back to what Nan said, education is not always memorization, its teaching them how to use the tools available to them to HELP them think, not think for them.
Great discussion! thanks!

[Tom Krieglstein]

Had a funny moment related to ChaCha today. I was doing a staff training at Georgia Southwestern and was talking about this blog and how some teachers are worried about students who use ChaCha to cheat in the classroom. And collectively the whole room let out a, "Oh yes, um hmmm, of course."

Then I talked about how in the "real world" if you don't know the answer, you better know how to get to it as fast as possible and ChaCha could be a great tool to teach our students. And collectively the whole room let out a, "Oh yes, um hmmm, of course."

I pointed it out and they all collectively laughed.

[jonmott]

I agree with the comments RE ChaCha forcing us to think about the nature of assessment, learning & knowledge. If anyone can access any information anywhere at anytime (I realize we're not quite there yet, but we're close), how important is memorization?

It seems to me that it's becoming much more important to teach our students what to do with facts and information than it is to require them to memorize facts and information . . .