Plagiarism and Turnitin

The internet has opened the door to a wealth of information and sources for our students to use in their studies. However, the consequence is that it also makes it too easy to simply copy content off the internet and paste it into one's research task as one's own work.

Plagiarism is an extremely common problem and is often the result of a lack of knowledge, skills and conscience.

The challenges teachers face is to educate our students about academic integrity and plagiarism and to give them the tools and skills necessary to avoid plagiarizing.

Plagiarism is a serious ethical offence and can have severe consequences. Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Acknowledging that your material has been borrowed and providing the audience with the information necessary to find that source is a positive step to preventing plagiarism.

We have recently subscribed to an originality checking and plagiarism prevention service called Turnitin that checks a student's writing for citation mistakes and inappropriate copying. 

When a student submits a paper into Turnitin, the software compares the submitted work against a massive repository or database of texts, student work, books, articles etc and generates a similarity report which helps to identify possible instances of plagiarism.

Based on the results of the similarity report, a student has the opportunity to edit his work in such a way that all the sources that have been used have been acknowledged and cited correctly.

We have spent time helping our Grade 12 boys in their Life Orientation Research Essays. Using the referencing and citation tools in MsWord they have been shown how to cite their sources correctly and to generate the bibiography for their assignment.

All their assignments have been submitted through Turnitin and the boys have been able to re-work their essays whenever the similarity report indicated a high similarity index. This has been an important developmental and learning process for the boys in preparation for what they are likely to experience at University. 

Jobs of the future

I enjoyed listening to Michael Chavez, Chief Executive at Duke Corporate Education, who was interviewed on the Kieno Kammies show. He chatted about the skills and knowledge our boys will need to succeed in work, life and citizenship. We need to teach our boys to become curious, to develop the ability to empathise, collaborate and look out into the world to find creative and innovative solutions to traditional problems. 

This interview is well worth listening to: https://omny.fm/shows/the-kieno-kammies-show/jobs-of-the-future 

Free, multimedia Internet safety presentations

We live in a digital age and our children are exposed to so much. NetSmartz offers free, multimedia Internet safety presentations tailored for specific audiences – parents and communities, tweens, teens, and younger children. Visit their site - there's some great material posted there.

17 Ways to Help Students With ADHD Concentrate

What a great article!
https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/17-ways-help-students-adhd-fidget

Internet Security and Safety

At a recent staff PD session we discussed Internet security and safety. The below videos give some insight to the dangers we face should we not take the necessary electronic precautions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk2RPOBpZvc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1F8sHjCBx0

Stay safe on public Wi-Fi 

1) Only join trusted networks and then be sensible about what you do while away and online

2) Make sure your Firewall is on

3) Turn off file sharing 

4) Avoid using specific websites on public Wi-Fi  ( Banking and personal (Facebook, Twitter, webmail) sites are most at risk since these are the type of websites hackers want access to )

5) Turn off Wi-Fi when you are not using it.

Some other things to remember

• Have a proper password - at least 8 Characters long; includes numbers, capitals and symbols e.g. eX@mpl3! How safe is your password? https://howsecureismypassword.net/
• Keep your operating software and programmes up to date. These updates patch vulnerabilities within the operating system and guard your machine against exploits. 
• Make sure your machine is adequately protected against viruses. We use FSecure at the school and can highly recommend it.

Be aware of...

Saving Credentials: You should perhaps only use auto-complete and save your credentials on your own device i.e. don’t do this on any machine that is not your own  

Pros 

• Remembering login credentials for you is convenient 
• Absolutely safe to do for non-critical sites e.g. No banking sites 

Cons 

• Credit card numbers, email addresses, passwords and usernames can become vulnerable to attacks 
• You're likely to forget your passwords if you never have to type them in If you leave your laptop unattended and unlocked, then anyone can retrieve your saved passwords 
• Fake websites can fool your browser into providing stored login and form data

Ad blocking to prevent click-bait
Install Ad Block Plus plugin for your browsers – Ad block Plus blocks those annoying and maliciously deceptive advertisements found on many of the most popular websites today making browsing faster and safer.

- Adblockplus is available on Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

Common ways a PC or laptop get infected (virus/Malware/Spyware)

• Accepting installation prompts without reading (An Internet advert or window pops-up that says your computer is infected with a virus and needs to scan or that software is required for you to install in order to download something. Or you agree to ‘free software’ that has check-boxes already checked to install additional applications bundled with your download. DON'T accept such prompts. )
• Visiting / Downloading software/movies/music/pictures from unreliable or illegal sources (Many modern viruses can be hard-coded into the website data which is downloaded into your temporary internet files automatically just by loading the webpage.) 
• Opening email attachments without knowing who they are from and why you have been sent them. Always double check the sender’s email address and confirm that the mail is relevant. 
• Plugging infected USB sticks and external hard drives into your laptop without scanning them first.