With continuing technological advances, the cell phone has become an all-in-one device, taking on several roles in communication, photography, and gaming. However a growing, more alarming, trend has also added cheating among the list.

Using technology to cheat is nothing new. "We have had students who have been caught using photo copies of notes or photo copies of other information during exams," said Peter W. Pappas, a coordinator of the Ohio State University Committee on Academic Misconduct.

"But we've not received any (reports) for text messages of the cell phone. The number of cell phone cheating is relatively small compared to all the cases we have each year. I would probably say it's about 15 cases in the year" he said.

This only underscores the speed of technological advances, catching instructors by surprise ill-informed of the capabilities of wireless devices. Most teachers and professors don't even realize cell phones can be used as cheating devices. "To be honest, I've never thought about the possibility. Maybe just because I assume students are naturally honest," Jeff Seiken, an instructor of History said.

But cheating isn't limited to the States. Recently in Korea, police expanded an investigation after securing evidence suggesting about 100 students allegedly used cell phones to cheat during the national college entrance exams.

Even more sophisticated, in Thailand, forty-six students were banned from the military for life after they tried to cheat in an army entrance examination by concealing cell phones in their shoes.

An Army spokesman said the students were found with phones in the soles of their shoes and pagers under their clothes by examiners using metal detectors before the multiple-choice test. "This is the first time students have been found using mobile phones in a bid to cheat."

Methods of cheating constantly changed and have even included students sending in their friends to sit the test for them, he said.

Schools are fighting back, with many revamping their cell phone policies; banning wireless devices from testing environments or school grounds completely.

St. Louis attorney Pete Yelkovac is among those sounding the alarm; recommending his client school districts, including 15 districts across Mid-Missouri, to consider the potential dangers of text messaging.

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