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Re: Wearables in Schools

In article <70ukrr$h3n$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,  <legacy@ieighty.net> wrote:

[snip story about Newton notetaking and exams]

>Now I'm on the verge of getting my wearable and enrolling in college, and I'm
>wonderinf what should I expect from instructors;  do any of the cyborgs in
>higher learning now have any advice they'd like to give?  Should wearables be
>allowed during exams at all?    How should I handle accusations that such a
>device gives one an unfair advantage?  Thanks.

I use my PP Pro in class all the time to take notes, and to download
a good deal of my reading assignments, as I'm majoring in philosophy
and most of the material I happen to deal with happens to also be far
out of range for copyrights to infringe on my use of it in that respect.

I get a good deal of questions from students, and even from a professor
or two.  Fascinated, I guess.  I use it because it's damned useful, not
because I'm a gadjo.  I'd use it for the use I'd get from it, and feel
lucky if I were you, that you even had the option of having an open book
exam, never mind hearing of someone else having one.  I know it's dismal
and plainly due to the exam chaperones overestimating the potential use
of a "computer" during exam in order to plagerize, but there is something
to differentiate it--you *can* actively use it to reformat your work in
a way that your fellow paper-toting students could not.  On those grounds
alone, they might have some justification in refusing you computer access
(unless you are a special needs student and that this involves such needs).

Use what you have.  If there are open book exams in your university or
college, I imagine you could probably convince them.  Especially if you
move out of the "state" you're in within your local community and show
your future exam chaperones that you *can* show them that there isn't
a potential for cheating by showing them the contents of your PDA before
the exam is written.  (My guess is that, too, the ones from your high
school knew they could be easily duped one way or the other since their
experience with PDAs were minimal and were probably in the right for
not trusting their egoism to be able to discern what was true in that
situation if "cheating" was a concern.)  This might not be the case
depending on where you go.