Technology and Plagiarism

On July 7, 2019 By teachingcyborgIn Ed Tech, Pedagogy, Uncategorized1 Comment

“All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Technology and computers have become central components of modern life. Using word processors has become such a common practice that if asked, most people know what Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V mean. On the positive side, technology has made writing and research faster. Modern word processors make writing and editing more quickly than typewriters or handwriting. Modern computers make changing words, correcting spelling, and moving large blocks of text easy and fast.

The internet makes information available in ways that historically would have been unbelievable. Libraries, museums, and research journals are accessible all over the world through the internet. The internet allows access to news in real time from all around the world. The internet has become such an essential source of information that there are individuals that say it is necessary for education.

Like most things with benefits come drawbacks. One of the most significant disadvantages of technology on writing is how easy it is to plagiarize. It is just as easy to grab text from someone else’s document as it is to move text around your document. Fortunately, like many things’ technology evolves along two fronts. People start reading your documents we developed encryption. Hackers create viruses, spyware, and trojans companies develop anti-virus software.

To counteract the increasing ease of plagiarism tools have been developed to identify it. Many schools are integrating Plagiarism checkers directly into their Learning Management Systems (LMS). Additionally, using the schools LMS to accept assignment digitally allows for automatic plagiarism detection. In addition to commercial tools today, there are also free tools. The availability of free tools means even if your school does not have a plagiarism checker, you can still make use of one to test your students’ assignments. However, what does it mean to “check” the material?

Several years ago, the school I was working at had a contract with Turnitin.com. When faculty sent an assignment to Turnitin.com, the program generated a similarity report. Turnitin.com uses a 0-100% scale where the percentage is the amount of the paper that is similar to other sources. Faculty would always ask what number means plagiarism. The faculty wanted an exact number, at X% the student committed plagiarism.

Unfortunately, it is not always that clear. Technically a single sentence can be plagiarism. The previous sentence is seven words long 0.6% of this document, and if I had stolen that sentence, it would be plagiarism. The definition of Plagiarizing “: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own: use (another’s production) without crediting the source” (Merriam-Webster) does not include a word length. If a writer takes another person’s text and attempts to pass it off as their own, no matter how short or long, it is plagiarism.

However, using the rule that any similarity score is plagiarism can also cause problems. Most plagiarism checkers will recognize quotes and references. Beyond that, maybe the writer forgot to add a reference or quotation marks. Alternatively, there is a limit to how many ways a writer can write something. Suppose a student is writing a review of a Sherlock Holmes book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. How many ways are there to write a sentence stating where Sherlock lives?

Sherlock Holmes lives at 221b Baker Street.
Sherlock Holmes lived at 221b Baker Street, London, England.
Sherlock Holmes lived in apartment b at 221 Baker street.
Sherlock Holmes lived in apartment b at 221 Baker Street, London, England.
Sherlock Holmes made his residence at 221b Baker Street.
Sherlock Holmes made his residence at 221b Baker Street, London, England.
The story began at the residence of Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker Street.
The story began at the residence of Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker Street, London, England.
Sherlock Holmes shared an apartment with Dr. Watson at 221b Baker Street.
Sherlock Holmes shared an apartment with Dr. Watson at 221b Baker Street, London, England.

I can quickly come up with ten sentences; I am sure I could come up with more without a lot of work. I would also be utterly shocked if someone has not written these sentences before. A Google search using the sentence “Sherlock Holmes lived at 221b Baker Street, London England.” produced 324,000 hits. The sentence “Sherlock Holmes made his residence at 221b Baker Street.” Produced 443,000 hits. Does this mean I plagiarized them? Well, I didn’t look them up, I didn’t copy and paste them, I created them from my memory of Sherlock Holmes address. I would say no, this is not plagiarism others might say yes, it is plagiarism.

Perhaps this is a situation in which a direct quote would be better. With very little research I found that 221b Baker Street first appears in the book A Study in Scarlet,

“We met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No. 221B, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows. So desirable in every way were the apartments, and so moderate did the terms seem when divided between us, that the bargain was concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into possession.”

The truth of the matter is that just about any plagiarism score below 100% (maybe 90%) you are probably going to have to review yourself. However, I have found that the schools and faculty that use plagiarism checks the best don’t only use the tools to watch for plagiarism but also as a means of teaching.

Make the plagiarism tools available to your students let them self-check. The plagiarism tools will help students identify simple mistakes like a forgotten reference or quote. Additionally, if they find that sections of their text are showing a lot of similarities, perhaps it is time to find an actual quote or reference. Plagiarism checkers can also enhance research skills, for instance, is that paper, book, or website the primary source for a quote. If your source is not the primary source, what is the primary source? The student might even find that the secondary source misused or quoted the primary source. Additionally, if the checker marks something on a student’s paper and they are confused by it, they can talk to their instructor generating a teachable moment.

It is easier than ever for students (or really anyone) to plagiarize someone else’s work. Fortunately, tools that help us uncover plagiarism are also getting better and better. However, we should remember that the best way to use these tools is not exclusively as punishment but also as teaching tools. We can use these plagiarism checkers to reinforce research and using references, quotes, and citations. Remember any tool that can be used to check, and grade can also be used to teach.

Thanks for Listing to My Musings
The Teaching Cyborg

Blame the Tools, It’s Easier

On June 21, 2019 By teachingcyborgIn Ed Tech, Pedagogy1 Comment

“PowerPoint is the Rodney Dangerfield of software. It gets no respect.”
Ken Goldberg

“Universities should ban PowerPoint. It makes students stupid and professors boring.” That is the title of an article from the Business Insider that recently came up in my LinkedIn feed. While I generally agree with the author’s statement that schools usually measure student satisfaction instead of student learning. I do take exception to the idea that PowerPoint is the root of all evil. The core of the author’s argument seems to be that lectures are generally not effective learning tools. Again, I generally agree with the idea that lectures are not effective. However, the author seems to blame PowerPoint for the persistence of lectures in education.

To quote the author, “Overreliance on slides has contributed to the absurd belief that expecting and requiring students to read books, attend classes, take notes, and do homework is unreasonable.” I, however, find this statement a little strange. For starters in almost all college-level courses, students don’t read in class. Students are expected to do their reading, textbook, novel, manuscript, and articles, either as preparation for class or review after class. How does the use of PowerPoint in class effect students reading out of class?

While I expect students being bored with poor lecturers could lead to decreases in attendance. I suspect attendance has more to do with faculty policy then the technology used in the classroom. In many undergraduate course’s faculty say it is up to the students to determine if they are going to attend or not. They often call it “treating them like adults.” If you think attendance is essential, require it, and then make the class time worthwhile, don’t blame random tech.

Homework, just like reading, is done outside of class. Of all the complaints, the only one that might be valid is note taking. After all, how the instructor presents the material will affect the student’s ability to take notes. However, is this the fault of the program or the failure of the presenter.

Whenever people start blaming educational problems exclusively on technology, I remember a quote I heard years ago. “The students got distracted by Facebook, so we took away the Internet. The students got distracted playing Solitaire, so we took away their computers, the students got distracted doodling, so we took away their pencils.” -Anonymous. This quote always reminds me of how easy it is to blame other things when the individual ultimately responsible for the classroom is the teacher.

So is the presentation tool PowerPoint responsible for poor classroom engagement and bad lectures or is the real problem that individuals don’t learn how to use PowerPoint. Let’s start with the basics, suppose I’m teaching An Introduction to Circuits course. First, we need to create a new slide presentation, and PowerPoint gives us lots of choices. Never use just a plain white background. With a white background; you can get chromatic aberration; the projector produces rainbows on the screen. The critical thing to remember is, I don’t want anything showing up on my slides that I don’t put there.

Look at the three slides below they are all available in PowerPoint which slide do you think would be the best.

Three PowerPoint Title slides with Title An Introduction to Circuits and subtitle CH1-Voltage. Slide A has a pretty but busy background and white text in a black box. Slide B has a light blue background with a dark gradient toward the bottom right corner and a circuit pattern along the left edge. The text is white. Slide C has a light blue background with white text.

How many of you choose C as the best option? Slide A is to use an old saying too busy. The circuit drawings on the side of B might be a distraction. The color gradient is not that bad an idea? We read slides from left to right and top to bottom a color gradient that uses the same pattern can help direct the eyes across the slide. However, you will have to keep this directionality in mind with everything you put on the slide. That leaves slide C, which is honestly not great. Modern projectors are bright, light text on a light background is hard to read. Creating an excellent presentation is all about fighting the defaults. So instead of light text use dark text, this gives us the slide below.

A PowerPoint title slide with a light blue background and black text

The next point concerning text is readability. The most significant impact on readability is room size. The larger the room, the bigger the text needs to be on the screen. Dave Paradi wrote a great article on text size for presentations Selecting the correct font size. Using Paradi’s work using a 10’ screen in a classroom where the furthest student is ~45’ away (100 student lecture hall) the smallest usable font size is 24 point. In a 500-student lecture hall (most distant student ~150’ away) the smallest usable font is 44 point. See the slides below.

Two PowerPoint title slides The two slide the first uses 24 Point text as the smallest and is for viewing form a maximum of 45 ft the second uses 44 point text as the smallest and is for viewing from a maximum of 150 ft.

That is a significant change in the appearance of the slides for a difference of about 100’.

Beyond text size and color, the most common complaint I hear is that PowerPoint forces you to use bullets. However, you can change bullets. You can turn them off, or not use them. Textboxes and other slide layouts mean you can place text anywhere you want. Remember an excellent PowerPoint presentation requires you to fight the defaults.

Now let’s be honest while I believe most if not all the problems with PowerPoint presentation are because of a lack of training the solution is not easy. After all, I only covered the basics of background and font size in a PowerPoint presentation. There are also issues concerning images, slide layouts, and presentation lengths to discuss. It is also possible to add questions to use with student response systems. Lastly, instructors can use PowerPoint presentations for active engagement. Maybe I should write a few more posts on this topic?

Thanks for Listing to My Musings
The Teaching Cyborg

To Be Digital or Not to Be Digital

On May 10, 2019 By teachingcyborgIn Ed Tech, Education Reform, Pedagogy, Research, Textbook2 Comments

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”
Confucius

The debate about textbooks and the cost of textbooks has become so large that governments are getting involved. In 2009 California passed SB 48 An act to add Section 66410 to the Education Code, relating to college textbooks. This bill requires publishers of College textbooks to make the books sold to the State schools (Diversities of California, the California State universities, and the California Community College system) available in digital format by 2020.

In 2011 Florida passed SB 2120 which added similar legislation for Florida schools. Several other states have passed bills relaxing regulations on the money assigned to textbooks to allow digital content to be purchased instead of traditional printed material.

Of course, even with these rules, there are still questions concerning digital books. One question is what do the students think about Digital textbooks? Several surveys have shown that e-textbooks (e-texts) have had slow sales, in 2010 e-texts accounted for only 2-3% of textbook sales, in 2012 e-text sales had grown to only 11%. The slow growth in e-texts sales is different than other types of e-books, as Amazon announced in 2010 that it was selling more digital than print books.

With the growth in sales of fiction and nonfiction e-books coupled with advantages like lower cost, more comfortable transport (weight), and the addition of multimedia and connected content it seems like e-texts should be growing exponentially. So why aren’t they? One reason might be the availability of the reader. While I read all my entertainment books in a digital format, I rarely read them on my laptop or desktop computer. I read them on my tablet or dedicated e-ink reader. According to the 2017 Educause study ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2017 While smartphones have reached near-saturation only about 50% of the students surveyed own a tablet. The presence of pictures, multimedia and formatting make e-texts challenging to use on smartphones; therefore another reading device is needed which 50% of the students don’t have.

If the availability of “reading” devices is the primary reason for the slow adoption of e-texts by students, there is an easy solution for governments and schools wishing to encourage the transition. The schools need to provide “readers” like they provide other educational tools. However, before we run out and change regulations we should ask is the lack of “readers” is the primary reason students are not adopting e-texts?

There is plenty of evidence that suggests there are other reasons students are not adopting e-texts. The current generation of undergraduate students is digital natives. Which means they are familiar and comfortable around technology. We might expect them to flock to e-texts. However, we need to remember that schools are historically slow to change how they do things in the classroom, even if they have the money to make changes. Authors Win Shih and Martha Allen in their article Working with Generation‐D: adopting and adapting to cultural learning and change point out that while the current students are digital natives. The students have not grown up with digital technology in their educational environment. Therefore the slow adoption of e-texts could be the students wish to stick with what they know.

Another interesting thing is that students confidence in their ability to use e-texts effectively has decreased over time. In 2012 60% of surveyed students felt they could effectively use e-texts while in 2016 only 44% said they could effectively use e-texts. (deNoyelles, A. and Raible, J. Exploring the Use of E-Textbooks in Higher Education: A Multiyear Study, EDUCAUSE Review, Monday, October 9, 2017) This decrease in comfort is unusual since students comfort with technology should be increasing as students grow up surrounded by more and more technology.

Where this decrease in comfort is coming from is an interesting question. A possible explanation could be the increased interactive and multimedia content in e-texts. In addition to searching, highlighting, and bookmarking features, e-texts have started to include features to ask questions, annotations, and chat with fellow students and faculty. All of these connected functions are in addition to the multimedia and linked content.

As I have written about previously (Shh I’m hunting (for) Digital Natives) Digital Natives while comfortable with technology do not have a deep understanding of how it works. Many faculty don’t understand this and fearful of looking foolish in front of their students don’t use, demonstrate, and model the educational technology used in their class. Because of this lack of training student might feel like they don’t understand how they should be using the e-texts.

Alternatively, since the use of e-texts has increased 24% over the same period as the students’ comfort has decreased
(deNoyelles, A. and Raible, J.Exploring the Use of E-Textbooks in Higher Education: A Multiyear Study, EDUCAUSE Review, Monday, October 9, 2017) , we might be seeing the Dunning-Kruger Effect . Early on in the adoption of e-texts, the students had so little self-knowledge about the use of e-texts they had no ability to judge their lack of skill and knowledge accurately. As time passed and the students gained experience with the e-texts they began to understand how much they didn’t know about the use of the e-text. More research is needed here.

While schools and governments have been quick to support e-texts for all there advantages, lowers cost, ease of portability, interactive and multimedia tools, and several (often incompletely implemented) accessibility features. Most of these groups have failed to look at the user population, the students. Recent studies from groups like Educause has shown that the ownership of dedicated reader devices like tablets has plateaued and may even be decreasing among college students. Additionally, while students are comfortable with technology the limited use of e-texts in K-12 means that students are more comfortable with regular print texts.

If we wish to continue with the increased adoption of e-texts we need to focus on working collaboratively across the whole of K-16. Students need to be comfortable and familiar with e-texts before they start college if we want e-texts to be used generally throughout college. To increase the successes of e-texts in education faculty also need to use and model e-texts in their classrooms so that students understand how to use them. Lastly, schools need to develop strategies to help students select and acquirer devices that will let the students get the most out of the e-text. Most importantly we need to remember e-texts will only work if the end user, the student, finds them helpful, compelling, and affordable.

Thanks for Listing to My Musings
The Teaching Cyborg

Should You be Replaced By A Computer?

On March 29, 2019 By teachingcyborgIn Ed Tech, Education Reform, ResearchLeave a comment

“Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer, deserves to be.”
David Thornburg

Whether as part of a talk, training session, or some other event everyone that has worked in educational technology has probably been asked the question “Are you trying to replace teachers with a computer?” Or heard the statement “You are trying to replace teachers with computers!”

Educational technologists are not trying to replace teachers. Educational technology is meant to enhance the teaching and learning experience. The goal of ed tech is to help the teacher and student so they can focus on learning efficiently. Ed tech is meant to solve problems in the learning environment so that teachers can get back to the job of guiding and interacting with the student. One of the uses of educational technology is to help with basic tasks so the teacher can focus on the things only they can do.

The core idea behind David Thornburg statement “Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer, deserves to be.” Is there are things that only a live teacher can do. Therefore, if a computer can do the things a teacher is doing, there is no point in having the teacher. Teachers should focus on the tasks that only they can do. However, like all types of technology in the classroom, we should discuss the idea of computer run education before it happens.

As a starting point for a discussion of computer run education, we should start with the questions; “what can technology do right now?” The reason for this discussion is that at some point technology is going to reach a point that from at least a financial standpoint people will consider replacing teachers with computers.

There are two places where computers can replace teachers in the face-to-face classroom and the online classroom. Let’s start with the online class. Most online classrooms are asynchronous. That means the students do not have a lot of real-time interactions with their teachers. Most of the communication is through email, text messages, and hopefully phone calls or audio conferences. While it is possible it is difficult to make connections and have real personal interactions with students in this environment.

Starting with communication can computers answer email, text, and voice chats/calls? Historically, automated computer response systems suffer from the inability to understand common spoken or written language what is called natural language. However, in 2011 IBM’s unveiled an Artificial Intelligence (AI) questions answering system (Q&A) named Watson. The systems competed on the game show Jeopardy and won, you can read about it here. Watson showed that natural language understanding in a computer had arrived. Since then Watson has only improved and is now used in many industries including finance, healthcare, and education.

Two of Watson’s tools are especially useful to education. A one-to-one tutoring tool that gives real-time tutoring to students when its covenant for them. The other is a natural language chatbot. These AI tools allows the students to ask questions and get feedback in real-time. Additionally, both tools can respond to typed and spoken language.

So a natural language Q&A system like Watson can cover the basic communication needs, usually done through email, text messaging, and voice. What about assignments and tests? All current generation learning management systems can already handle multiple choice, true/false, matching, and single word answer questions.

That leaves the short answer, discussion boards, essays, and reports. There is a software tool called General Architecture for Text Engineering (GATE) a natural language text analysis tool that uses both rule-based analysis and neural net learning. Using this tool students would be able to get feedback on written assignments as well as automated grading on final drafts.

The tools discussed here are only some of the options developed in the last 10 to 15 years. However, looking at just the tools discussed in this blog and based on the modern structure of most online classes we already have the means to replace teachers. Again our research and discussions are lagging what we can do.

Concerning face-to-face classes, the national language AI’s are not quite at the point where they can run multiple participant discussions and give lectures — assuming we except lectures out of thin air. However, natural language AI systems will probably have the ability to run multi-person discussions or give lectures within the next 5-10 years. Augmented reality, virtual reality, and projection systems will also provide natural language AI systems the ability to have a physical presence in the next 10 to 20 years.

Contrary to previous times AI systems with natural language understanding are reaching a point where at least in theory they could replace teachers. We are desperately in need of research that shows what impact AI “teachers” have on learning and the classroom. Additionally, now is the time to have real thoughtful discussions about AI tools in education not in a couple of years when government/administration starts adding them to classrooms. We need to decide not merely what we are willing to let the AI system do in education but why we are making these decisions.

Thanks for Listening To My Musings
The Teaching Cyborg

The Three Rules of Programming, Sort of

On March 21, 2019March 21, 2019 By teachingcyborgIn Ed Tech, PedagogyLeave a comment

“Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.”
Martin Fowler

The advance of technology has been staggering. In 1947 the transistor was invented. The transistor allowed the inventions of the Integrated Circuit (IC), which is what modern computer chips are. In 1971 the first IC was built, all modern computer technology has been developed in the 48 years since. Today everywhere you look there is a computer.

This explosion of computer technology has created whole classes of devices that did not exist 50 years ago, cell phones, tablet computers, digital cameras, the internet, the internet of things, augmented reality, virtual reality, and the global position system to name a few.

This explosion of technology is affecting education either through changes in society or because the technology is useful for learning. The question of how we deal with the ever growing and changing technological landscape in education is an important one. Most importantly how do we make sure pedagogy drives the technology and not the “cool” factor?

To make sure the tools have a pedagogical value we will probably have to understand the technology and build it our-self. What exactly does it take to create these tools? What does it take to understand the technology that surrounds us? First, we need to understand what is at the core of modern technology. That core is software, computer programs, without software all that fancy technology is just a paperweight. So do we all need degrees in computer science and programming?

No, we don’t need all need degrees in computer science and programming. I might argue that a few classes in computer literacy and programming would be beneficial to understanding and living in the modern world, but that for another day. So if you don’t need a degree in computer science, how are you are supposed to develop and build educational technology? You do what we always do in education you collaborate. You either team up with or hire programmers. You bring the pedagogy and content knowledge they bring the programming skills.

OK, so we collaborate how do you do this? For a start, you need to have a clear idea of what your end product is going to be. You need to develop a detailed list of what your technology will do. However, when you are developing software, there are three rules you need to understand.

You can have it good.
You can have it fast.
You can have it cheap.

The important thing about these three rules is you only get to pick 2. Realistically, everyone is going to choose good (at least I hope so). So, in reality, you get to pick one.

What do these three rules mean and why can’t you have them all. Let’s come back to good in a minute and deal with fast and cheap first. These two rules are inversely related to each other. In a project, I was involved with we had hired a group of programmers to develop software. I was talking to the software architect concerning deadlines. One of our partners made changes to their needs which lead to changes in the software.

I asked the software architect what this was going to do to our timeline. He said that if the deadline started to slip, we could always add more programmers to the project. Modern software is often composed of multiple subprograms that each do a specific thing. Think about the calculator on your computer. One subprogram would deal with addition another subtraction and so on. Because of this modeler nature, it can be easy for multiple programmers to work together they can each work on a separate subprogram.

However, as anyone that has ever managed a budget will tell you personnel is usually one of if not the most substantial cost. That, of course, means more programmers can get the job done faster, but it costs more. Specifically, each new programmer will increase your cost by 100%. Two programmers cost 200% what one does, and three programmers cost 300% what one does as you can see costs multiply. So you can have your software program fast or cheap.

Now let’s get back to good. When it comes to a software program good is a lot more than how it looks and how fast it runs. Good computer software will have a detailed and exhaustive testing phase. Specifically, the programming team will develop a plan and possibly testing software to try and break the software and identify bugs. A properly built program will behave in predictable ways even when it fails.

So as you can see good software is a lot more than looking pretty and working. Getting to the working stage takes a lot of specific skills. So now that you know, the three rules start thinking up new educational technology and get out there and collaborate.

Thanks For Listing To My Musings
The Teaching Cyborg