[apetresc]

> Cheating is such a fluid concept anyway, and it's inconsistently applied. Some schools will suspend students for using calculators on a math test; some force students to bring calculators to their tests. Some give out the questions before a test, while others expel students for distributing test questions. Some require students to collaborate or use online sources; some forbid it. It's arbitrary.

These are students sneaking cell phones into an exam, and going out of their way to surreptitiously look up answers with them. There's no moral ambiguity here.

> Punishment for cheating also presumes the validity of 20th century-style academic testing.

No it doesn't.

> What is the purpose? To ensure I'm qualified for a job? A job where I am free to look up words in a dictionary whenever I want?

These are primary school-children. There's nothing wrong with asking them to learn basic skills like literacy or numeracy (or, say, basic integrity) even if they're disconnected from "jobs".

> I don't think it will be all that long before we're connected much more intimately to the internet than we are right now with just our eyeballs and fingertips. And that means we need to reevaluate what it means to learn information versus to find information.

Sure, and there will be tests for that set of skills where accessing the internet during the exam won't be considered cheating. But in this situation it is.