A Virtual Possibility

Are you familiar with Moodle or Blackboard? Well, in our school district we are in the process of implementing Moodle, but upgrades are on the way and the going is slow. Moodle is essentially a virtual learning community in which students can have discussions (really like chats), post assignments, receive peer feedback, and take quizzes and tests. Its possibilities in every classroom, not just the Senior Project classroom, are endless.

I used Moodle in my freshman and senior classes for quiz purposes, but I used it mainly as a forum. We all know that there are students in class who are reluctant to contribute. This “virtual community” created by programs such as Moodle really eliminated that fear and anxiety. I was able to post a discussion question about a novel and have TWO HUNDRED comments or replies in one class period. Here’s the secret. . . allow the kids to adopt an alias. You are still in control because you know the alias, but the kids have virtual anonymity. It is amazing how in-depth the discussion can get.

With Moodle down for the count, I had to search the Web for a replacement and found Nicenet (www.nicenet.org). It is easier to register for and, because it is Web-based, it requires no host (which is a requirement for Moodle, even though it is a free program). Nicenet offers many of the same virtual services, at no cost to the users. I have emailed the creators of Nicenet asking about upgrades, and they assure me that upgrades are on the way. They use volunteer programmers in order to keep the program at no cost, so the programming gets done when there is free time. Is there ever free time in the programming/networking world?

Applications in the Senior Project classroom could include discussions about topic selection, ethics, drafting, fears about giving presentations. . .the list goes on and on. Try it. You’ll like it. I'll post a transcript of a recent chat in an English classroom. One class period's responses are thirty-seven pages long in Word. You'd never get that with a verbal discussion. SPN members can access this transcript by going to the Resources page and scrolling down to Kelli's Downloads.

The Sniff Test

So it’s plagiarism prevention time again. Seems like just yesterday when I wrote the entry about ethics and the students’ responsibility to cite borrowed information. This is obviously a constant struggle.

This time, the lesson comes not from a Senior Project class, but from a Sports Marketing class in which the teacher had assigned a short (2-3 page) research paper on an athlete or sports agent. Through the faculty grapevine, I have become known as the “Plagiarism Buster” because I am the facilitator of our Turnitin.com account and I am really good at Google searches for plagiarized information. Anyhoo, Ms. G brought me several papers that, in her words were, “Too good to be true.” (That’s a pretty good indicator, huh? When struggling writers become brilliant writers overnight . . .) One of the papers she brought me was printed in color and still had the hotlinks in blue. What a hoot! It took me about five minutes to find their sources, print them out, and return them to Ms. G. Didn’t even have to bother with Turnitin; all I had to do was pick out a particularly sophisticated phrase and put the whole thing in the Google search bar with quotes at the beginning and end. Immediate results. Ms. G was amazed at how easy it was to bust them. I taught her my very intricate (ha ha) technique and she was off and running. She took her set of papers back to class, laid them all out on the table, and gave her kids the opportunity to pick them up and try again with no penalty, as long as they did their own work. About HALF the class picked up their papers to try again. She put the remainder of the papers through the “sniff test” and still found about twelve instances of pure cut and paste. After awarding the thieves with a zero and assigning an additional paper on ethics and plagiarism, I think her kids are finally getting the point. And here’s the point. . . we are not stupid.

I don’t know if busy schedules and lack of time to investigate has led to students being able to get away with plagiarism, or if it is just that teachers don’t know how easy it is to find the sources. Some people say that the Internet has corrupted our kids, making it easy for them to cheat. I think it’s our fault. We have not taught them how to integrate information and have not held the line enough to make the consequences for plagiarism meaningful.

My school is on the road to changing that mindset. We are serious about teaching our kids that plagiarism is stealing, just as if you put a CD in your pocket. Stealing is stealing. No question. Information literacy and writing instruction will go a long way toward plagiarism prevention, but, let’s face it, it all comes down to the grade. If we all stick together and take the time to perform the “sniff test,” the word will get around and the ever-so-easy right click won’t be worth it anymore.

Here are some great resources. I have written for permission to use them. One is a great interactive tutorial about citing information and one is a well-formatted brochure you could hand out to your kids about plagiarism prevention.

http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/plagiarism/

http://alameda.peralta.edu/projects/20013/plagiarismbrochure12pt.pdf#search=%22%22plagiarism%20handout%22%22