Plagiarism Timesaver!!! (among other great uses!)

The focus of this post is a hopeful response to a long-term of frustration of mine and a source of countless hours of what I've come to call 'Plagiarism Policing.' One of my biggest pet peeves is grading student papers is coming across brilliantly written work that doesn't reflect the students' persona in class whatsoever! More often than not, that usually means they had some help. That's usually about the time I start entering some of their most articulate phrases into Google and find myself on a plagiarism witch hunt.

Turnitin.com offers a suite of web-based educational tools (gradebook, peer review, grading, & originality) that can be purchased at a district, school, department or even an indivual level. Our district recently purchased a license for the Originality piece and the english department offered an in-service training that introduced this powerful tool for two reasons.

First, the Originality component of Turnitin.com prepares a report for both students and teachers that highlights potential plagairism issues and even gives links to sources that the information may have been taken from. For the teacher, each student paper is assigned a rating that essentially indicates how 'original' their work is. The second piece of this software is that once a student turns in an assignment through turnitin.com it becomes part of a permanent database that future papers will be compared to along with an web resources that an assignment might be compared to.

I am very excited to use turnitin.com this fall for the first time. I look forward finally being able to simply read and grade student work for its content and not have to worry about the originality of the work itself. This will literally save me HOURS of additional 'policing' that inevitably accompanies any major student project. More importantly, I think it will provide students with a tool to check their own work if they aren't sure if they have plagiarized or not.

While I think this will be a great tool, it's my understanding that it is quite expensive to purchase a license. Also, it isn't perfect. It will highlight potential problems, but it isn't absolute. Finally, using turnitin.com REQUIRES students to submit their work online...which for some disadvantaged students could be difficult....accomodations must always be considered.

I also found these other links that deal with plagiarism on the iste.org website:

EVE2 (Easy Verification Engine): http://www.canexus.com/eve
Glatt Plagiarism Services: http://www.plagiarism.com
SafeAssignment: http://www.mydropbox.com
Penn State Cyberplagiarism Page: http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/cyberplag
Plagiarism.org (sponsored by Turnitin.com): http://www.plagiarism.org/
University of Alberta Guide to Plagiarism and Cyber-Plagiarism: http://library.ualberta.ca/guides/plagiarism/
University of Texas at Austin's Preventing and Detecting Plagiarism: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/services/instruction/faculty/plagiarism/

(http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/LL/LLIssues/Volume_33_2006_2005_/March_No_6_/March_2006.htm)

Google Earth

Google Earth is a tool that I have have been trying to incorporate into my World Areas-Middle East curriculum for the past three semesters with limited success. (Albeit, mostly because I haven't taken enough time to become effective with the tool.) Being that the Middle East is a rather unfamiliar place for my students; a place that very few have been, or even desire to go to, Google Earth is a wonderful tool to bring it to them in the classroom. In the past, I have used it in a very rudimentary way: visiting significant historical sights, illustrating the landscape of the region, or simply looking at localized pictures posted through Panoramio. But, there are several helpful resources that one can use to better tailor Google earth to your own needs.

Google even sponsors an educator tutorial page for dimwits like me to use Google Earth more effectively. There are testimonies, classroom ideas (by subject), tutorials, and even a discussion group that one can participate in to share or discuss potential classroom uses. There are seemingly an infinite number of websites dedicated to using Google Earth, however, the Google Earth Blog was of particular interest because the author is constantly adding new 'real world' applications for Google Earth, many of which would be excellent ideas for both the classroom and personal use. In short, the major pro of using Google Earth is that it can be used in seemingly infinite ways and there are an incredible number of resources to draw ideas and training from. However, it's been my experience that it requires a high-speed internet connection to operate smoothly. At school, it tends to lag and sometimes function very slowly. While this might be due to our low bandwidth, the bottom line is that one might shy away from using it if its functionality uncertain.


Check it out, go take a virtual around the world vacation ...you'll be amazed what Google Earth can do.

I have officially entered the blogosphere!!!!