In high school, I always hated when my classes’ essay submission days would roll around. We used platforms like Turnitin, which automatically search papers and check them for plagiarism. I didn’t mind the fact that we were submitting our essays, I just hated the stressful wait to see whether or not my paper had plagiarism. Deep down, I knew I hadn’t copied; I was great about providing works cited to keep track of my citations. I was, however, fearful that somehow my plagiarism percentage would be high, and I would fail. Little did I know, I probably should have forgotten about this irrational fear and instead worried about the fact that my hard work was being sold for a profit by companies like Turnitin, while I got none of the credit. In “A Guide for Resisting Edtech: the Case against Turnitin,” Morris and Strommel explain how many online education technology companies are harvesting students’ information and selling it for a large profit. These companies ignore their misleading mission statements and forget about the core values of learning. Teachers and students alike are turned into consumers, and the emphasis on learning is thrown out the window. We need to realize these companies are not as beneficial as they appear in order to protect our own values and information.
