What is your emotional response to students “cheating” using technology?
The New York Times recently published an article titled “Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College.” In it, the prospect of students using AI to complete assignments is seen as a largely negative phenomenon.
In response to a similar article, I saw a commenter on LinkedIn write that she “requires all work be hand written in class, without any technology use at all.” In her mind, this was the only way to prevent “cheating.”
But what if there’s another way to think about emerging technologies in our classroom settings?
What if the problem isn’t ChatGPT, but the reality that most assignments given in traditional school are meaningless outside of the schooling apparatus?
I would argue that banning technology to the degree that many are is the same as requiring students to work by candlelight. Such a response would not prepare our young people to exist in the new world that is emerging before us.
What would it look like to be responsive, rather than reactive, to these changes in a way that supports our young people to make healthy choices around their own technology use, both in and out of school?
On this episode of Breaking the Paradigm, I had a great conversation with Dana Anderson, an expert in Digital Citizenship and Montessori education.
Dana argues that the best way to help our young people develop digital citizenship is to center them in the conversation about how, when, and why it’s used. We should be having conversations with students about the challenges and opportunities of new technology, and to learn alongside them.
Along the way, we may realize that some things we’ve been doing actually aren’t as meaningful as we thought they were. And we must be prepared to give those up in service of a meaningful education.
Thanks, Dana for a great conversation!
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