u235

So, a college student in Canada studying chemistry starts a help group on Facebook. He gets a 'B' in the class which is then changed to an 'F' when the teacher discovers the site. Why? Because the teacher (unnamed at this time) considers electronic sharing of thoughts and ideas as cheating. Here's the scoop:

TORONTO (AP) -- A Canadian university ruled Tuesday against expelling a first-year engineering student accused of cheating through an online study group on Facebook.

Chris Avenir's apparent exhortation to fellow Ryerson University engineering students to ''input solutions'' to assignment problems on the social networking site raised the ire of a professor.

On Tuesday, the 18-year-old was told that while he wouldn't be expelled he would receive a zero on the assignment section of the chemistry course, which was worth 10 percent of his final grade. Despite that, Avenir still passed the course.

Hello old fashioned? I remember when calculators in math classes were considered "cheating" (slide rules probably weren't). This is a great example of how universities and their mouldering, doddering old teachers can't keep up and fear what they don't understand.

The site was never hidden, and all the content is available to *anyone*. Chris not only got slapped for creating the site, but also for 146 charges of "enabling misconduct". Awesome... Supposedly the university embraces the use of technology in learning, I'm guessing that applies only to abacuses and 5" floppies.