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Education Technology

Rich Kids Are Cheating in School With Apple Watches (theoutline.com) 252

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: There is, however, one demographic that has embraced the Apple Watch with open arms: tech-savvy, upper middle-class teens and tweens. The watch is a convenient workaround for classroom cell-phone bans; it can be used for everything from texting to cheating on tests. [...] Julia Rubin, a former middle-school teacher at a private school in New York City, said that when the Apple Watch first came out in 2014, a handful of students got them as presents for the holidays.

When Rubin asked her school's principal to ban the watches the same way the school banned cell phones, she refused. In addition to kids texting during class, there is growing concern that smart watches could be used to help kids cheat during exams. In fact, there is a wealth of YouTube videos showing teens how to do precisely that, usually with the disclaimer that they are only sharing this information "for entertainment purposes."

[...] Nikias Molina, 20, is a Spanish vlogger who runs the YouTube channel Apple World. A slender, dark-haired kid with braces and a slight European accent, Molina posted a 2018 video showing subscribers how to use various apps on the Apple Watch to cheat on exams. As he demonstrates in the video and explained to me, there are apps you can download onto the Apple Watch to save PDFs, but the most common method is to take a photo of a cheat sheet and pull it up on the Apple Watch, which doesn't require internet accessibility. The response to the video was mixed -- "students were thanking me [in the comments], and teachers were hating on me" -- but the video racked up more than 115,000 views.
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Rich Kids Are Cheating in School With Apple Watches More

Rich Kids Are Cheating in School With Apple Watches

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  • Don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Sunday February 03, 2019 @12:43PM (#58064402)

    What's the difference between pulling up a cheat sheet on your watch and having one stuck in your sock? I suppose you could keep more material on your watch, but as everyone who's ever written an open book test knows, more material is a curse, not a blessing.

    If you see a kid fiddling with their smart watch during a test, fail them. Can't do that? THAT's your problem, not the watch.

    • ... I looked into the soul of the girl beside me. (Woody Allen)

    • What's the difference between pulling up a cheat sheet on your watch and having one stuck in your sock?

      The difference is whether or not your parents can make a hefty donation to the school's endowment.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        The difference is, the difference between being a Theranos princess and well a prison sentence. Cheating in school, has real world consequences, just like dropping out, yeah, you will be shite at your chosen profession and likely end up with prison sentence ;/.

    • ehh the watch can be less circumspect. MUCH less circumspect.

    • Or rather, just copy the exam conditions in the UK. No watches, no devices at all other than the prescribed calculator, and from what I understand you must even be willing to show the memory of this... Also, clear pencil cases, clear water bottles.

    • Because it's simple to write an app for the watch that doesn't require you to fiddle with it to cheat - which means the teach would have to be able to see all the kids watch faces (which is circumventable by having the accelerometer hide/unhide the ui with arm movement.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Have you ever invigilated an exam? You don't see kids fiddling with bits of paper. You see them suspiciously staring at something other than the middle distance, usually in the region of their crotches. The watch is even more suspicious.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mcvos ( 645701 )

          So to cheat effectively, you need something to stare at in the middle distance. I think a less conspicuous descendant of Google Glass may provide just that.

    • When I was in high school, the teacher would confiscate all phones (which you weren't supposed to have anyway, and your parents would have to pay $20 to reclaim it from the principal). She would come around and clear the memory on your TI-83 as well, if you were not using a district provided calculator. There is no reason why these same policies can't be implemented now, other than teachers wanting to avoid the difficult part of their profession- telling kids no. But yes, writing answers on your arm under y

    • It's a way to call out "rich" kids and further class warfare.

  • Bad exam design ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Sunday February 03, 2019 @12:46PM (#58064414)
    Design the exams like university level exams, where a cheat (equation) sheet is allowed, but you actually need to understand the material to finish the exam in time. regurgitation based exams are stupid.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      What kind of equations did you use in History? There are plenty of subjects where that kind of test just isn't possible. Even in sciences (gross anatomy comes to mind, had lots of memorization in that one).
      • History -- make them write about why and how, not when, to prevent cheating.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          When, where, and who can be important factors in history though.

          • Important to remember? Not really.

            24 June 1812 – 14 December 1812, Russia, Napoleon?

            Who and where might be a minimum to look up the date, but are the exact numbers as important as the realities of continuing to invade Russia in winter, or what lessons other "determined leaders" might learn from not being able to reassess your goals in changing circumstances?

        • Why did the Harappa disappear? How did the transition from stone to bronze occur?

      • What were the events leading up to World War One, and why could a simple assassination of a heir to the throne start a world wide war?

        Trust me, I'll know exactly whether you know anything about it or whether you wikipedia'd it from your answer. And yes, this is probably the only one, or maybe one of two, questions for a one hour exam. Because to explain this all you HAVE to know European history of the 19th century (and basically write a summary of it), and you better know it well.

        • Re:Bad exam design ... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc.famine@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Sunday February 03, 2019 @07:52PM (#58065762) Journal

          Except that teachers often are told that they can't assess like that, because students need a clear-cut answer. Because subjectively grading that might lead to bias, and it would be better to have a multiple choice test with well defined answers so that nobody can complain about unfair grading.

          If we could let teachers be professionals and hold them to high standards, without parental or student interference, that would really help. Unfortunately, we don't pay most public school teachers enough to get great ones, and a lot of administrators (and teachers themselves) aren't interested in fighting asshole parents who often are looking for As for their kid and are seeking any way to manipulate the system to get them.

          If your kid fails a multiple choice test, the best you can do is argue that the question was vague or the answer options were wrong. Both are fairly easy to counter-argue. If your kid fails a 1 hr essay on why the Maginot line was ineffective, you can attack that from all sorts of angles including bias on the part of the teacher, and them asking kids for something that doesn't have a well-defined answer. And parents (at least in the US) are insane enough that some will throw fits in the school or district office, and show up at school board meetings to shit on a teacher who didn't give their kid an A. And who will sue everyone even tangentially involved.

          This leads schools to dissuade this sort of very good exam writing in favor of cut-and-dried shit that would easily stand up in court. Yet another fantastic knock-on effect of the US legal system!

        • Are you a teacher?

          If yes, please tell me which school district gives you a class size small enough that you can actually pull that shit off in a non-AP class.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ranton ( 36917 )

        What kind of equations did you use in History? There are plenty of subjects where that kind of test just isn't possible. Even in sciences (gross anatomy comes to mind, had lots of memorization in that one).

        Others have already pointed out there are much better ways to test knowledge of history than to ask what year Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

        It isn't always just poor test design. Often it is poor curriculum design too. If your history test only tests an amount of knowledge you can fit on a cheat sheet, you are only asking for cramming of information (into either their brain or cheat sheet). If you really care that much about memorization, and this is actually important enough information to know long term,

    • Re:Bad exam design ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by fermion ( 181285 ) on Sunday February 03, 2019 @02:14PM (#58064758) Homepage Journal
      Fundamentally the issue here is not that students are cheating, but that tests are designed the same way there were 50 years ago, and are measuring the same kind of useless knowledge that lead to the problems we have in the 1970's.

      Take the Advanced Placement exams, from the college board. These are college level exams where you have all the knowledge in front of you, and you need to understand the application to get a high score. However, the test is ultimately measuring your ability to fill in the correct bubble so any rational person, if they can, is simply going to get a list of correct answer choices and fill them in. Yes, many tests have a written section so you must know something, but on many AP tests the written section is not the limiting factor.

      if you are not interested in rank and file, but knowledge, then there are a number of innovated ways that one can ask questions in a computer based exam that both give an somewhat individualized test to each student and can be graded automatically. The student can be given all the content, and can even be allowed to 'cheat' to find other content, but the cheating is not free. I costs time and points as the students will not be able to complete as many questions as the student that is familiar with the subject.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        This is one of the reasons why there was a move towards coursework instead of exams back in the 90s. Measure performance over a longer period of time, factoring in things like the student's willingness to learn and fill in gaps in their knowledge when required. Also helps prevent transient problems like illness causing life-long disadvantage or a culture of re-sits.

        The oft cited problem is that it's very easy to cheat on coursework, but there are ways to handle that.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fermion ( 181285 )
          It is also often very expensive to grade and can subject students to the cultural biases of the grader or instructor. This is why, for instance, more than one person grades the written part of the GRE and more grade it if there is more than one point difference. Expensive. The goal is to keep the efficiency and maximize the objectivity of the test while acknowledging that cheating occurs.

    • Re:Bad exam design ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday February 03, 2019 @02:42PM (#58064862)

      In my current exams, I let the students use all lecture slides and their own notes and their own summary of the lecture. Does not have any impact on results, but the students learn more because they revise the material better this way. One student even commented in the eval that he expected the lecture summary he did to be quite useful in the future. We are in the information age, even if many teachers and lecturers have not realized that. Restricting access to information too much, giving too little time, etc. are just very bad ways to increase exam difficulty. They are easy to do though, so they are a favorite of intellectually lazy teachers.

    • This.

      Seriously, if your test is about fact regurgitation that can easily be replaced by 5 seconds of google search, don't be surprised when people just do that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by novakyu ( 636495 )

      But that would require that teachers actually understand the subject. That is patently unfair and unreasonable!

    • And how do you grade 150 of those and stay within budget?

      In most Universities you use free labor from grad students, but that sort of cheat is not available to ordinary High Schools.

  • I was in high school 30 years ago and I cheated during an exam by wearing a long-sleeve shirt and passing the wire of an ear bud in there. Then I listened to my home-made "audio book" of Canadian history on my crappy Candle portable cassette player.
    I got real good at pressing the buttons quietly!

  • I tried to use a Fitbit to cheat, but having to move my legs gave it away.

  • Apple Watch != "rich" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by slasher999 ( 513533 ) on Sunday February 03, 2019 @01:16PM (#58064558)

    An Apple Watch may not be cheap, but having one hardly makes anyone rich. We really have a strange way of measuring wealth in this country.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      An Apple Watch may not be cheap, but having one hardly makes anyone rich.

      Not being rich generally makes a person not have an Apple Watch, though -- because an Apple Watch is the kind of frivolous purchase people make only when they have extra money to burn.

      • There's a world of difference between the definitions certain people use for "poor" in order to rag on the "rich" and the actual *poor* who can't afford food or clothing.

        In the UK, what most people seem to define as "poor" seems to include a lot of people who have large screen TVs, decent smartphones, smoke a pack a day, drink to excess etc.

        Which is why I take articles such as these with a huge dose of salt.

    • The "poor" kids know that they can only compete on actual merit, and they have more to lose if they cheat. The "rich" kids will just coast along using whatever means they fancy, while their fathers take care of their future careers.

    • An Apple Watch may not be cheap, but having one hardly makes anyone rich. We really have a strange way of measuring wealth in this country.

      Is an Apple watch someone people buy on their own? I've never seen an Apple watch that wasn't paired with a top of the line smartphone.

  • A good test is not for rote knowledge, it will test your understanding of the material. In fact in the uni we were left all physic books we wanted, we were asked to form a reasoning over the question given, formulate an answer, and apply what we could to form a conclusion based on the presented points - you would be surprised on how many people fell through and could not answer porperly. Basically asking you if you remember what equation X,Y,Z looks like and spit out the correct response, is stupid, rote kn
  • if you buy last gen.

    Then again maybe it's only the rich kids with connections that get away with it. There's not a teacher alive who doesn't spot every cheat device you can think of. Even the drunk ones (they just don't particularly care)

  • "students were thanking me [in the comments], and teachers were hating on me"

    You know, it is possible for someone to disagree with you without being a "hater".

  • "European" accent? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by YuppieScum ( 1096 ) on Sunday February 03, 2019 @02:16PM (#58064762) Journal

    Really? A "European" accent?

    Can they mean "speaks Spanish like a Spaniard rather than a Mexican/Puerto Rican/American/etc," or "speaks English with a Spanish, rather than Mexican/etc accent."

    Or perhaps it means they are unable to distinguish between the accents of the Spanish, Greeks, Italians, French, Germans, Poles, Finns, Swedes or British, let alone the regions thereof? (other European countries are available)

    Whatever they mean, it adds nothing to the actual story and serves only to demonstrate the laziness and ignorance of this "journalist," and the ineptitude of the editorial oversight processes of this "publication."

    Sorry, but this sort of thing really pisses me off - if copy like this came across my desk (OK, so it wouldn't actually, but you know what I mean), words would be had... probably starting with "bollocks."

    • You're assuming the purpose is journalism (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday February 03, 2019 @03:36PM (#58065042)
      You're assuming the purpose of TFA is investigative journalism. To bring an important issue to the public's attention.

      It's not. The purpose is to generate more page loads and thus more advertising revenue. So if inflammatory insinuations - like singling out kids who wear an Apple Watch, or speak with a "Europeant" accent - gets you all in a huff to where you click on TFA, then it's done its job. It's one of the reasons I'm not that critical of comments here from people who haven't read TFA. So many of articles are click-bait that I won't fault someone for using a too-stringent anti-click-bait filter and not reading TFA.

  • It's all too predictable that most comments are focusing on the "rich" versus "poor" debate, which completely sidesteps the real issue of the lack of quality education in American K-12 schools.

    This is why smaller class sizes are important, not because smaller classes are easier to manage in the classroom, but because they enable instructors to actually devise and grade homework and tests that aren't easy to cheat. I see the comments that call for such tests, but fail to appreciate that in a high school env

  • If your "test" can be beat by a kid wearing an Apple watch, then your test sucks and is just a waste of everyone's time. There are plenty of ways to assess student growth that can't be beat by an Apple watch (or answer sheet in your sock, or what ever)

  • Cheating isn't new - solutions exist. (Score:4, Informative)

    by onkelonkel ( 560274 ) on Sunday February 03, 2019 @03:19PM (#58064986)

    I was university back in the late 70s. Kids would program their calculators with the formulas. Teaching assistants would walk around and reset i.e. wipe the memory on everybody's calculator before the exam started. Most professors allowed students to bring a single 8 1/2 x 11 cheat sheet to the exams. The point of the exam wasn't to find out if you could memorize the formulas, it was to find out if you knew how to apply them.

  • Watches are banned at my university (Score:3)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Sunday February 03, 2019 @03:27PM (#58065004)
    At the university I attend (US, top tier research, public school), watches are already banned from the testing centers. I guess it's been a thing for a little while. I was wondering why the heck watches were banned from the testing centers. I couldn't think of a way to cheat with regular watches.
    • Probably afriad someone would make a spy camera on one and photograph the exam to sell to others.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Barnoid ( 263111 )

      At the university I attend (US, top tier research, public school), [...] I was wondering why the heck watches were banned from the testing centers. I couldn't think of a way to cheat with regular watches.

      Heh, how did you end up at a top-tier university?

  • Ran 3rd part math and science during the SAT, ACT, and on every math and physics test.

    If you know where to look, exam mode hacks abound. Doing this helped me bolster my math scores on my application to Penn. Sure some diversity applicant was denied, but who really cares anyway.

    Non story.

  • Feh. When I took the PSAT, one of the proctors who knew I was the only kid in class with a calculator watch made sure to tell me to take the watch off in front of the whole class.

  • ...and we wonder why they live at home until they're 30...

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