How to cheat, courtesy of YouTube

A cold bottle of Coke. An iPod with headphones. A cell phone.

They're all common accessories for high school and college students.

But they also can be clever ways to cheat on tests.

Oh, so you're not familiar with the latest cheating methods? Neither are many of today's teachers, apparently.

But it's never been easier to find out about them. Just visit YouTube, where an amateur filmmaker has posted a melodramatic video he calls "How to Cheat on Any Test." With violins playing in the background, he explains how to take the label off a Coke bottle and make a new one with the notes needed to pass a test.

"When it's complete, it should look just like this," he instructs. "Nobody'll know except you."

The Coke caper isn't the only newfangled way for students to waltz into class with test answers disguised.

Using a cell phone to text answers to friends has become popular, even in schools that don't allow phones. Many teens have learned how to conceal the fact that they're texting in class, said Emily Tusick, a junior at Bay High School in Bay Village, Ohio.

"You can pretty much use your phone without teachers noticing," she said, adding that she doesn't take part in such practices.

An iPod provides another handy way to cheat. Your history teacher need never know that you're listening to your own self-recorded podcast on pre-Colonial America.

If you're wondering why schools haven't simply banned the gadgets, guess what? Many of them have. It hasn't exactly been a deterrent.

"Kids are pretty wily," said Mentor [Ohio] High School principal Joe Spiccia, who has seen students conceal iPods in their sleeves, and then rest their heads on their shoulders to hear the answers.

He's also had to discipline youngsters for using hidden cell phones during tests. Young people are so adept at texting, he said, that they can send test answers from a phone tucked in a hoodie pocket without ever looking at the keyboard.

"When we catch them, we do penalize," Spiccia said. "But we'd be foolish to think we're catching everyone. We'd be foolish to think we're catching the majority."

'Everybody's doing it'

It wasn't so long ago when cheating was something you'd at least lower your voice while discussing. There was a taboo, a sense of shame associated with it.

Not so today. With cheating splashed all over YouTube, there's definitely a "C'mon, everybody's doing it" mood afoot. Take it from Kiki.

"I know it's not a good thing to cheat. It's like academic dishonesty and blah, blah, blah. But you know, I think everyone has done it at least once," says the young videomaker.

She then launches into an explanation of how to slip a cheat note into a transparent pen.

"Hopefully my teachers do not see this video. That would be very awkward," she says before signing off with a cheery "Bye, YouTube!"

Scroll beneath the YouTube videos and you'll uncover a community of people who review the various cheating methods and exchange comments. One person who tried out the Coke idea returned to curse out the person who made the video.

"I got my final exam invalidated because of your stupid method," he posted angrily.

A sense that cheating is OK

Cheating is nothing new, said Jacqueline Larry, guidance counselor at Warrensville Heights High School in Ohio, but it's a shame the videos are creating a sense that it's OK to do it.

"What is that saying about our students and our society?" she asked. "I think you need to work for what you want and you need to study. If you've got to find ways to connive and get around the rules, I don't feel you're going to get ahead."

Trina Dobberstein, dean of students at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, said the videos are worrisome because they confer a pop-culture status on cheating. Yet she hasn't noted a recent surge of cheating.

"The numbers are relatively small and stable. I've not seen a spike," she said.

The Coke method seems to have arrived on the scene as a new option for students whose schools have outlawed cell phones and iPods. Even the SAT test has strict rules now: Students are not allowed to bring cell phones or portable listening devices of any type including iPods. But they can bring in drinks.

Yet James Drnek, dean of students at Cleveland State University, questions how much can really be squeezed onto a soda label or inside a pen tube. "You can't get that much information in there."