You high school guys might want to go easy on your iPods for a bit. Reportedly high school institutions across the U.S. are banning the music device to keep students from cheating in exams.

Students have become increasingly creative with ways to cheat with the growing technology at their disposal, hence the teachers are looking at cutting the evil from the roots, so to speak. And this is by way of imposing an outright ban on digital media players. Mountain View High School, for example, has already implemented the ban, realizing that some students had downloaded formulas and other material to their players.

Says National Association of Secondary School Principals spokeswoman, Shana Kemp of the ban, "I think it is becoming a national trend. We hope that each district will have a policy in place for technology - it keeps a lot of the problems down."

On the other end of the spectrum, meanwhile, there are some institutions like Duke University in North Carolina, which have chosen to utilize the iPod to enhance the educational experience of the students. So far, with the experiment going on for three years now, the move seems to be working for them. Instances of cheating have declined over the past ten years, and they say it's "largely because the community expects its students to have academic integrity," explains Tom Dodd, executive director of Duke's  The Center of Academic Integrity.

Technology can both be a boon and a bane. It's just a matter of determining for yourself if you'll use it for the good or not.