Tech Shout!

Schools all over America have labeled digital media players such as the iPod and Zune as potential cheating devices. Previously, schools had banned baseball caps during exams as students were writing answers under the brim. They even banned cell phones, realizing that students could text message the answers to each other.

Now that American schools are targeting digital media players, they hope to curb the practice of cheating using such means of technology. Apple’s iPods and Microsoft’s Zunes can be hidden under clothing, with just an earbud and a wire snaking behind one ear and into a shirt collar.

One school that recently enacted a ban on digital media players was Mountain View. The school immediately acted on this soon after school official realized that some students were downloading formulas and other material onto the players.

“It doesn’t take long to get out of the loop with teenagers. They come up with new and creative ways to cheat pretty fast, said Mountain View High School Principal Aaron Maybon.”

“A teacher overheard a couple of kids talking about it,” said Maybon.

Spokeswoman for the National Association of Secondary School Pricipals, Shana Kemp said that she did not have hard statistics on the phenomenon, but said that it was not unusual for schools to ban digital media players.

Some students go as far as using the an iPod-compatible voice recorder to record test answers in advance, and then play them back.

And, there are other students who download crib notes onto the music players and hide them in the “lyrics” text files.

It’s not just in America that such bans have been imposed. Probably schools around the world are hoping that bans of digital media players will help prevent students from cheating.