Personal Electronics should be allowed in the classroom

NegDefinitions: • Personal electronics refers to any instrument that uses electricity, for ex: tablets, cell phones, and computers that is owned by the student for at least a one-year term.Standard:The standard, or weighing mechanism, for this debate should be the quality of education. Since this debate is about personal electronics in the classroom, it will impact education the most. The team that can best prove that their side of the resolution betters the quality of education should win today's debate.Contention 1: CheatingAllowing electronics in the classroom will provide a method of cheating to teenagers.According to US news:• 1/3 teenagers admit to using cell phones to access information quizzed on a test• ¼ teenagers don't think using cell phones to get info for a test is cheatingJudge, if 1/3 of teenagers use their phone to cheat, imagine how many students use other electronics to cheat.In addition, electronics promote plagiarism.Rutgers University found: • 72 percent of the students admitted to "seriously cheating on a written work" • more than half had "copied portions of a paper from the Internet without citing the source."Electronics will just expose students to more chances to plagiarize. This should absolutely no happen since plagiarism is already such a big problem.• For Fall Quarter 1998, 73% (51 out of 70) of Georgia Tech cases where students were judged guilty of cheating originated in courses administered by the College of Computing.• According to U.S. News and World Report, cheating occurs 53% more in classrooms with electronics that not• In a 2006 survey by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, 60 per cent of U.S. high school students said that they had cheated in the previous year. A 2005 Rutgers study found that more than half of graduate business students in North America admitted to the same thing.• Common Sense Media, a non-profit advocacy group, finds that more than 35% of teens ages 13 to 17 with cell phones have used the devices to cheat. More than half (52%) admit to some form of cheating involving the Internet, and many don't consider it a big deal. For instance, only 41% say storing notes on a cell phone to access during a test is a "serious offense." Nearly one in four (23%) don't think it's cheating at all.according to ABC news, a 2002 confidential survey was taken of 12,000 high school students, 74 percent admitted cheating on an examination at least once in the past year.Contention 2: Downgrades EducationAccording to NY Times, the children of CEO's of high tech companies Google, Yahoo, Hp, Apple, and Ebay send their children to Waldorf schools, in which children are exposed to absolutely no technology in the classroom:• A parent of waldorf schoolchildren says, "I fundamentally reject the notion you need technology aids in…school…The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do arithmetic, that's ridiculous."• According to bls.gov, 68% of recent high school graduates enroll for college. Waldorf school graduates, who have little to no exposure to technology in school, boasts a rate of 94% of its high school graduates that enroll for college, many of which go to "Oberlin, UC Berkely, and Vassar."In addition, according to The Economist April 7th 2012:• "GIVING a child a computer does not accomplish anything in particular." • "In Peru, site of the largest single programme involving One Laptop per Child… test scores remain dismal. Only 13% of seven-year-olds were at the required level in math and only 30% in reading, the education ministry reported last month."• Judge, even though Peru spent $225m to supply and support 850,000 basic laptops to schools throughout the country, Peru's education system was still one of the worst in South America.