rethinking plagarism in the 21st century classroom
Anyone out there reading this during summer?
These dog days allow me to wander the netscape and read many different articles. Today I stumbbled on one from Australia, calling for academics to rethink Plagarism:
News Article | PIER | Professional International Education Resources
“What they are all calling plagiarism isn’t plagiarism at all, it is in fact a new and fast and obviously digital way of synthesising information,” Dr Spender told the HES.Dr Spender was speaking ahead of participating in a public discussion on plagiarism next week at the University of South Australia.
“What kids are doing in downloading text is exactly what they are doing in downloading music,” she said.
“They take bits and pieces, mixing and matching them and making something that is their own product.”
Her remarks extend her thinking in her online publication, From Books to Blogs, where she wrote: “Today there is really no such thing as online reading. You are taking charge of the information that is there.”
Sorry, but: If a student hands in work that he/she did not create, and claims that he/she did create it, it’s plagiarism. “Remixing” is not equal to creating, any more than my making a playlist on iTunes is equal to my composing the songs on the list.
As a college professor I have no interest whatsoever if a student can successfully download and rearrange text. I *assume* students can do that. What I want to see is students solving difficult problems with intelligence and skill using ideas that they came up with. Anything less than originality in the content is of no interest to me.
It’s this kind of attitude, frankly, that is beginning to kill academic work in the 21st century.
Robert you raise valid points, but I am not sure the attitude has begun to kill academic work as much as make work, linear assignments:
Does multiple choice test really demonstrate kids solving difficult programs?
Do poster boards really show original ideas?
I agree with you by the way, but when a fairly high profile academic who was the Chair of Copyright Agency Limited’s (CAL) board of directors it is something that needs to be discussed. And I would argue rethought: I work in an extremely competitive college preparatory school with highly ambitious students: They cheat way more than anyone cares to address. And they are not alone: Studies out of the US consistently showing over three quarters of high schools report cheating. Do we really think this goes away in university? In my experience much of the cheating goes away with more thoughtful and authentic assessments (hard to fake a presentation or a debate).
What strikes me as absurd is how easily the kids do it, knowing full well it is wrong.
I never get to see the data collected to substantiate claims of what students are doing with their ‘mashups’ etc. While I agree with the likes of Larry Lessig that copyright law needs rethinking to adjust for modern collaborative technologies [see the TED lectures], I do have trouble agreeing with the typical ‘digital native’ claims I see too often thrown around. I’ve been disliking this term now for quite awhile and it often is used as a quick excuse to explain digital behaviours. If students want to use ANYTHING they have NOT created within something THEY then create -wonderful, but they better refer to its authorship/creatorship. To do otherwise SHOULD be a crime. That is all I ask of my students – differentiate between YOUR adaptations from the original. Leave it to the audience to determine if the new creation is original.
I don’t like how we often claim digital natives do thing differently as an excuse. Sorry this does not fly. From my experiences at a laptop school last year, students are digital natives when it suits them. When educators ask them to learn digitally using tech they are unfamiliar with or do not have interest in, the digital native label is of no use to them – or me.
We learn what we are interested in. Facebook is not a success because its a digital tool in a digital age with digital natives. It is successful because its a useful tool that allows ANYONE to socialize and stay in contact. A very useful tool for a social species.
Lets not use digital native as an excuse for inexcusable behaviour. Lets teach how to use digital technology respecfully with respect to authorship/creatorship.
Plagarism is and always be plagarism purely by definition. “Digital Natives” still plagarise. As teachers it is our role to teach them not to plagarise/mash-up/re-mix other people’s copyright material.
I agree with you Shaunigan, the secret is also in the setting of tasks that limit the potential for “appropriation” whilst still allowing for an authentic assesment experience.
We all seem to agree that today’s students have digital knowledge without possessing what I like to refer to as “Digital Wisdom”.
Where are they going to learn this? Has it become another essential skill that we need to cram into an ever-increasing moral/social curriculum? You know the one. The skills and knowledge that educators teach, that aren’t written down in any official curriculum syllabi but as teachers we know that these abilities are essential to be a useful and productive citizen in the 21st Century.
So do we just let them become digital reguritators because that’s what they do ….. or do we EDUCATE?
New blog post: rethinking plagarism in the 21st century classroom http://www.utechtips.com/?p=782Quote
rethinking plagarism in the 21st century classroom /U Tech Tips/ – Anyone out there reading this during … http://tinyurl.com/6r6f2zQuote
[...] 11:38 pm a few weeks ago I posted on an Australian story of a university pfoessor calling for a re-evaluation of plagarism. Today comes news from England of a university prossor there saying we need to give up on spelling: [...]