Information and communication technologies in schools: a ...

Cooperation and sharing
Students sitting together in the same classroom, or communicating over a longdistance
network, can do cooperative writing. This is important, first, as practice
for joint work and, secondly, for life, but is generally neglected and sometimes
even suppressed in the traditional 20th century school.
The ability to copy and email information objects like essays, pictures, and
presentations gives students the opportunity to share information easily with,
and receive comments from, others outside the classroom. These other audiences
could be teachers of different subjects, other students and friends, parents
and relatives, local community, a pen pal, or (by posting it on a website) others
in the world.
Essay writing and citation
There is a downside when it comes to the influence of ICT on essay writing,
as many teachers have discovered. Essay writing on different subjects and topics
became more and more popular as a reaction to standardized tests in the
1990s just as the Internet was becoming easier to use. Within a few years,
teachers found they were reading more and more identical essays submitted by
students. Students had discovered a new, easier way to write an essay – find it
on the Internet.
This kind of cheating led to a whole system and even a commercial business
of counter-measures to provide teachers with tools to detect copying. Are these
countermeasures good or bad? There is no question that copying without
acknowledgment is bad, but the solution is not to police minute phrases that
might be parallel. There is an opportunity here to introduce students to appropriate
ways of citing the work of others, which after all is the basis of scholarship.
What teachers should look for is independence and originality of thought. The
reaction to a discovered case of copying without citation should not be that this
is a deadly sin but rather “Good for finding some relevant information. Now tell
me what YOU think about this topic and include a correct reference link,
please”. A disagreement over the printed word is rewarded and becomes a basis
for critical thinking and evaluation.
ICT in Learning and Teaching
135