News and Stories that my

The British developed title headed off strong competition from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves that led the nomination field before the ceremony.

The game, which sees the superhero tackle a series of old foes in the asylum setting, also picked up the Bafta award for best gameplay.

Despite not winning the best game award, Uncharted 2 did take four other awards including best action and story.

Title race

The Bafta awards is one of the biggest nights in the UK gaming calendar. The winners of 14 of the categories are chosen by industry figures.

One award, sponsored by high-street store Game, is chosen by gamers. As widely expected Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 took that title. The sales that Modern Warfare 2 racked up in 2009 made it the biggest selling game of all time.

Assassin's Creed II was nominated in a total of seven categories but managed to win none of them.

The video game Baftas also saw success for another British-developed title LittleBigPlanet. Originally created by Surrey-based Media Molecule, it won the best award for best handheld game. The portable version was produced by an in-house development team at Sony.

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There's an app for that.

Whether it's downloading CliffsNotes to their iPhones or texting friends for test answers, tech-savvy teenagers are finding new ways to cut corners.

In a national poll by Common Sense Media, 35 percent of teens admitted to using their cellphones to cheat in school at least once. More than half said they had cheated via Internet.

``Kids are being more and more creative,'' said Joseph Egozi, a member of the National Honor Society at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High in Northeast Miami-Dade. ``There's a lot of pressure to succeed. Everybody wants to get ahead.''

Among the new, high-tech ways of cheating, according to local students and teachers:

• Taking photographs of tests and e-mailing them to friends.

• Sending out mass text messages with answers.

• Storing information in cellphones.

• Using Smartphones and e-readers to access the Internet during a closed-book exam.

Yet another way: downloading CliffsNotes, the enduring yellow-and-black study guides, directly to iPhones.

The 99-cent downloads include notes on The Great Gatsby, Macbeth and The Scarlet Letter.

CliffsNotes were designed to supplement reading, not replace it. Still, teachers say the study guides can tempt teenagers to cheat.

Plagiarism has gone the way of the Web, too. Experts say it's easy for students to lift passages -- and ideas -- from the Internet, sometimes without realizing it.

Kelly Valdes, a senior at Miami Sunset in Southwest Miami-Dade, said cheating using communication technology is ``way too common'' at her school.

``For some people, it's not a big deal,'' Kelly said. ``They don't think about it as a moral thing.''

National data supports that.

In the national poll, only 45 percent said they considered texting friends about answers during a test cheating and ``a serious offense.''

For teachers, that means keeping an especially watchful eye over students during tests and assignments.

``These kids are very fast and very sharp,'' said Culham Amengor, a reading and language arts teacher at Homestead Senior High. ``They have the technology in school and they know how to use it.''

Experts say cheating on schoolwork has existed as long as schoolwork itself. But there has been a steady increase over the past two decades, according to the national report Smart and Good High Schools.

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