For as long as there has been school, there has been cheating. And in many ways, the advent of the digital age has made plagiarism and stealing answers even easier. Some teachers will tell you that trying to prevent cheating is an exercise in futility. While it’s true that you can’t police all students at every turn, you can put some techniques and digital tools in place to help curtail problems while embracing collaboration.

A new poll by Common Sense Media finds that more than a third of students have used a cell phone at least once to cheat on a test, and that more than half have used the Internet to cheat.

Surprisingly, many of these students don’t consider these behaviors serious cheating offenses, and some don’t consider them to be cheating at all.

The poll found that students today store notes on their cell phones to look at during tests, text their friends for answers, and use mobile devices to search the Internet for information. Some even take pictures of the tests to share with other students. But many of the kids polled said these were either minor offenses or simply ways to help themselves or a friend get a better grade.

From a young age, students learn that answers exist at their fingertips through search engines and expert websites. It is more efficient to just look up the answers through the hard work someone else has already done than to find the answers on their own. K-12 students are not the only culprits though. When was the last time you went to the library or dug through physical records or documentation to find the answer to something? Adults take advantage of the convenience of technology all the time – even in the workplace. The difference, of course, is that most adults grew up at least partially technology-free. Today’s students will not have that life experience and instead will have learned the quickest ways to find answers – not necessarily the right ones.

The Goal of this guide is to assist educators as they work to reduce the impact that cheating has on the learning process.