Accept No Excuses!

Our school district recently deployed laptops to all freshmen at two different high schools. In order to help support our teachers successfully use the laptops, our team of TechTrainers has been spending lots of time in the buildings helping students and teachers with their new laptops.

While visiting a teacher's classroom, I heard her telling students that their work was due electronically by 7:30 the next morning. She told them that she would not accept late work for any reason, so they better not leave things to the last minute, lest their Internet connection crash or some other disaster strike. I asked her later what she would do if she received a corrupted document. In that case, she told me, she would allow the student to fix the issue and resubmit the assignment. Seems fair, right?

Perhaps, but did you know there are websites that will corrupt a document for you? You just upload your word document, and it returns a corrupted version of your file.

Who in the world would want this service? Students who have not completed their assignments on time, for one! Students can use sites like these to corrupt a file, then turn in the corrupted file to make a deadline. When the teacher tries to open the file, they find that it's corrupted and assume it's some kind of upload problem.  By the time they talk to the student about it, at least one day has gone by, giving that student a free deadline extension!

Here's one site that provides this "service": http://www.addictivetips.com/internet-tips/corrupt-a-document-to-buy-more-time-life-hacks/

So what does this mean to you as a teacher? Bottom line, think twice before accepting any excuse for late work!