pointcounterpoint
Should Students Use the Internet while Taking Tests?
YES
Some might
argue that wheth-
er or not you al-
low students to
use the internet
during testing
depends on the
goals of the test and what you are test-
ing. In my view, it should not matter
what the test is asking of the learner;
students should be allowed to access
internet resources while taking any
test. Doing so would force the test
designers to move beyond asking for
plain facts, demonstrations of simple
skills, or basic understanding of con-
cepts. For example, a teacher might
design a history test to assess whether
students know historically significant
dates, locations, figures, causes of
wars, outcomes of treaties, and so on.
But such a test would lack any assess-
ment of students’ ability to effectively
criticize a treaty or judge the quality
of a historical document.
NO
At this time,
giving students
access to the
internet during
testing is like leav-
ing the answer
key to the test on
your desk and then leaving the room.
It creates an irresistible temptation
to students to merely look for the
answers rather than coming up with
the answers on their own. It is bad
enough that math students in high
school feel like they need a calcula-
tor to multiply 11 × 36 (that’s 396 for
those who didn’t learn your multipli-
cation tables). Can you imagine stu-
dents going to Google and searching
for: “What is 11 times 36?”
Maybe my thinking isn’t very 21st
century, but here we are in the 21st
century, and I still don’t see the magi-
cal changes in education that I was
promised during the 20th century. Un-
fortunately, I don’t think we’re there
yet. I keep hearing at conferences that
we need to reassess the way we assess
students. Maybe that would be great
in advanced classes, but what about
the basic classes? Can every class at
every level be taught using critical
thinking without needing to assess
whether the students have gained the
basic building blocks? The answer is
no. The range of student skills at each
grade level is still too wide to make
a blanket statement like, “All high
school students should be able to use
critical thinking during tests instead
of checking for basic facts.”
Don’t get me wrong, I love smart-
phones. I am jealous of the teachers
who pull them out of their pockets
in the hall between classes to check
the weather forecast and their emails,
Facebook posts, and Twitter feeds
when they are supposed to be super-
vising the students’ change of classes.
Keep in mind that these are profes-
sionals who presumably have learned
how to focus while completing a task.
If adults cannot handle focusing while
doing something as simple as hall
duty, how can you expect teenagers
to not be distracted when using the
internet on their phones? Assessments
might take all day by the time they
