Why are there more issues with cheating, plagiarism, and related incidents now than before the web? Or are there?
As far as the elementary level, the children are still learning what plagiarism is. The extent of cheating in my classroom is looking at your neighbor's paper or copying off another person. It could also be sneaking the spelling list in the desk to copy off of it, but at the age of seven and eight, they are not that good at it (not that they should be). I am always trying to reinforce to my students why you cannot copy someone else's work and that when they are researching they have to reword and not copy word for word what they see. It is a learning process for them, so I feel as if the web has not really affected my younger elementary kids, but maybe the upper elementary grades like fourth and fifth.
At the high school level I see this being a much bigger issue, but to the extent I do not know. I am not working with this age group, but cell phones, texting, intenet, plagiarism, and cheating must be big issues. With the ease of texting or looking up an answer on the internet with phones, I feel as if cheating is easier to do. As far as plagiarism though, I feel that has always been an issue. Now with some sites and google, if a person is suspected of plagiarism it can just be imputed into the computer, and the computer can help clarify if a student is completing their own work rather than copying from sources.
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