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Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

alistair.blog

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Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#111

Post by de6u99er »

Ways back we got a prnalty when we did not do our homework which was called "Zapfen" in German language.

It's basically like this: You get a starting number, have to multiply it with 2, then it's result with 3, then this result with 4, until you multiplied it with 9. After that you had to divide it by 2, then by 3, ... and finally by 9 and end up with the same number you started with. Sometimes even higher than 9.

Since our teachers understood that there are calculators and even kids like me who knew how to write loops in Basic code, they chose the numbers big enough to result in scientific format or overflows, so that at a certain step the precise calculation could not be done any more with a calculator or computer program.

So I wrote a Basic program which did multiplications and divisions the way you would do it manually with strings. From this point on I was only limited by the amount of memory, which wasn't an issue since my Amiga 500 had 1 MB of Ram.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#112

Post by distances »

petercooper wrote: post #107

It's a different era now, but back in my day Altavista had just launched Babelfish and a few of us began using it for our French homework. My friend got "caught" due to the "peculiar" nature of his work, and while they couldn't figure out what was happening, we were all warned quite sternly to stop doing whatever it was we were doing. Lesson learnt: only use Altavista to read French ;-)

I have a similar story -- our Swedish language teacher congratulated a classmate of his excellent Norwegian essay. I have no recollection any longer what and how actually caused his mixup, but he would've definitely been caught in any case as the output was far above his skill level.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#113

Post by rjmunro »

rcfox wrote: post #55

When I was in university, I scraped an internal job postings site for students to find internships. The site was terrible- each job description would load in a pop-up window controlled by Javascript, and loading a second description would override the first. It was also really slow and had limited filtering. My version could load job descriptions in new tabs, presented the table on a single page, and you could mark j…

So you made a tool to make life easier for you and your fellow students, and rather than congratulating you they threatened to sue?

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#114

Post by lynguist »

de6u99er wrote: post #111

Ways back we got a prnalty when we did not do our homework which was called "Zapfen" in German language. It's basically like this: You get a starting number, have to multiply it with 2, then it's result with 3, then this result with 4, until you multiplied it with 9. After that you had to divide it by 2, then by 3, ... and finally by 9 and end up with the same number you started with. Sometimes even higher than 9. Si…

But that’s weird, as 9! is just 360,000, 6 digits in decimal.

Assuming a pocket calculator has 8 digits, it would overflow only if the starting number was around 300. Was it like that?

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#115

Post by moondev »

Because this all happens on the front end and the backend accepts the requests - I'm curious if this is exempt from the legal definition of "hacking" aka "accessing a remote system with Ill intent" or however it's defined .

Although I guess that applies to sql injection as well so in theory there was really potential legal trouble here?

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#117

Post by drux »

np_tedious wrote: post #106
jbman223 wrote: post #29

Reminds me of a passion project I started in high school that went completely viral and took on a life of its own. Wrote a small script for my friends to check their AP scores a few days early. Required high schoolers giving clear text access to their entire CollegeBoard account so I could log on and scrape their scores. Somehow it got posted to Reddit and from that year on, grew wildly. Got to almost 2 million stude…

Can you elaborate on the approach? This sounds really interesting but I don't quite understand from reading your comment and https://earlyscores.com/about/ I think I remember paying some small amount of money (flat fee irrespective of # of years, IIRC) to get my scores quicker via a phone call in 2003,2004,2005. Perhaps I would've been better served by your EarlyScores.

https://github.com/jbman223/EarlyAP

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#118

Post by youssefabdelm »

Rooting for you guys. If anything this should cause some people to question the very educational structure they've set up. If people are attempting to evade homework it's because it isn't interesting to the student, which hints at a deeper problem that the school/teacher/entire school set-up and structure needs to address. They essentially need to throw out everything they've set up because they're operating it more like a police state/prison "Ooo let's CATCH the cheaters! Let's CATCH the plagiarists! That'll show them!"

Instead of saying "What are we doing that isn't capturing the students interest in these tasks? How can we connect this subject to the students most meaningful, important, and immediate concerns and goals? What concepts from this subject can we teach the student that'll help them achieve those salient goals?"

The creators of these companies seem less concerned with actual long-term meaningful learning and more concerned with playing policemen.

Educational institutions need to be way more student-driven and student-concerned, allowing the student to shape their journey, as opposed to turning out cogs for the system like military training.

Alternatives exist like behavior analysis's programmed instruction, but even that needs a radical upgrade or integration with AI.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#120

Post by Waterluvian »

Given the modern division of labour, people are more often than not an expert at whatever they do for a living.

It makes me think that high school is still too generalized. I think I only got to pick about half my courses and even those had to fit into certain bins. Couldn’t do too many tech courses. Had to have an arts course each year. Stuff like that.

If students have _any_ personal inclination towards any course we should enable them to take it without any bureaucracy. One of the most precious and fleeting resources is when a teen is self-motivated over education.

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