Today's Kids Have It Easy

Warning: what follows may devolve into a cross-generational rant. I just read how schools are now banning portable media players, like iPods, to discourage cheating. That makes sense, since one could record the relevant portions of textbooks or reference material, and either play them as sound, or view them on the display. I don't know why schools didn't do this earlier when they banned cellphones because of the texting features. But all this just reminds me how bad I had it when I went to school.

The internet was not as accessible as it is now, so looking stuff up actually meant going to the library to find a book, and then poring through said book to find the information you actually wanted. Or even finding out from that book, that you had to find another book, and then looking through that book. It could take hours to actually find all the stuff you needed to know for your paper or project. I think back on that, and feel old (hey, I'm entitled!), because the stuff I used to look up in libraries, literally only takes me seconds to find online. Which makes me pissed off at these kids, because they think they still have to cheat to do well on tests. Hell, they're already cheating: it's called Wikipedia, baby! And people wonder why kids entering college have no critical thinking skills. I don't, because I know they didn't develop any of those skills by judging whether the information in all those books they had to lug back to a library table was "good" or not. The online majority, as an extension of google-ranking, tells them whether something is "good." Well, that's just the wrong way of going about it! Think for yourselves! Your question, or your motivation, for finding some bit of information is unique to you, and should not have to be boiled down to two or three search words.

Back to the media player banning: some softy education types will always think "technology" is a useful tool in the classroom. I can't think of one study that has shown that the use of computers in the classroom has helped test scores or improved grades. When I search for this stuff, I always find the studies that show "no effect" or "prove to be a distraction." Well, they should move the computers to the computer lab, and teach kids, and the teachers, how to use them, instead of trying to run some math learning software on them. So, of course, some puddinheads somewhere think that iPods would be great. No justification for it, just that it's new technology. In this AP story, some idiots from Duke allowed the media players in class, and even handed them out, claiming they were "invaluable for some courses, including music, engineering and sociology classes." Of course, no anecdotes were provided. I can understand the music classes, because digital media is the standard of the day. I remember having to check out tapes from the library for my music classes and foreign language labs, but that's not the same as saying my cassette player was "invaluable" for my learning experience. Citing Duke as apologists for allowing portable media players in the classroom seems a bit odd, without any context provided. Besides, the whole story was about banning media players during exams, so what was the application for testing that Duke was talking about? I've got no clue.

I can't think of any proper use for an electronic device, besides a scientific calculator, in an exam situation. If you can, please let me know. Otherwise, this AP story's newsworthiness only rides on one premise: iPod, and how to cheat with it.