Would-be cheaters looking to get their hands on the latest in sneaky tech for students are going to have to keep looking. The Canadian company behind “ExamEar” has temporarily shut down its website in the wake of a storm of controversy over the device in Britain.
ExamEar is a tiny earphone that acts as a receiver; it can pick up ‘transmissions’ from someone speaking from a remote location into a microphone or cellphone. ExamEar was being marketed as a means for students to cheat on exams, CanWest News reports.
Beyond the obvious moral problem, here, I don’t really get how this would work. Unless the student was prepared to text message the questions to an accomplice, say, (which seems like a risky strategy) the person feeding the answers from a remote location would have to know the questions on the exam in advance, no? Can someone explain this to me?
You expose an obvious hurdle in the exam ear cheating scheme, but as the saying goes “Where there’s a will, there’s an way.”…..the fact that the ExamEar opens up an avenue for cheating will motivate would be cheaters to find a solution to this problem. A trip to the bathroom by a fellow classmate perharps…….or maybe a hidden camera to go with an ear piece would be a plan.
Transmissions from these devices can be easily scrambled however, so enjoy the window of opportunity while it lasts, because someone is sure to ruin it.