I’m so glad I went to school before laptops existed.

I’m so glad I did my finals in 2020 when my college was completely unprepared for the sudden switch to online. I was able to open book my whole last load of classes.

My academic institution took the more sensible approach of just making the exams open book, and adjusting the questions to demonstrate understanding and application of the concepts, rather than just recite stuff.

demonstrate understanding and application of the concepts, rather than just recite stuff

That’s how it should be anyway. I suspect the only reason all schools don’t do it that way is that it would cause too many students (and teachers) to fail.

You wouldn’t believe how difficult they are to mark. The basic skills of penmanship and sentence construction have fallen through the floor. 20% of students in my last class didn’t even attempt the short answer section on an exam that was otherwise multiple choice.