The Age of Metrics - How Technology Is Influencing Education

I recently heard an interview with a New York Times reporter about The Age of Metrics. Now, as a science teacher, my first thought was about measuring in base ten, but this is not what the Age of Metrics is all about. His premise is that as our society becomes more integrated with computer based technology, we are beginning to place a higher value on quantitative information and less value on qualitative information. His examples were based in the business world where marketing decisions are now made based on website hits and advertising click throughs. More philanthropic organizations are basing their decisions to fund research and programming on data based decisions and not intrinsic or cultural value which are difficult to measure or test.


The world of education certainly is being impacted by this shift to the Age of Metrics. Books, articles and blogs share ideas for how to gather data and use the data to make decisions in your classroom and schools. Research supports the fact that one of the key to improving education is to analyze data to see if a program or curriculum is really doing what it supposed to do. No Child Left Behind has shown the value of standardized assessment of identified standards as a measure of the information that a student has learned. Students are identified by demographic information and test scores. Data driven decision making is the educational buzz phrase of this new century.
There is certainly a role for quantitative data in education.


But where does technology fit in? Is there room in a data driven curriculum for qualitative decision making? I think there is. Laptop technology offers students a wide range of choices for expressing their thoughts and ideas creatively. Open source software offers the ability to design visual presentations of ideas. Blogging, wikis and Google Docs allow students to collaborate on ideas and share information, building on each other's strengths and perspectives. Audacity and other online music programs allow them to create original music or utilize music to emphasize a mood or concept in their presentations. Access to a wide range of information and primary source materials allow students to think more quantitatively as well - by gathering information from varying points of view, by observing how society responds to challenging situations, students can form their own ideas about the world.

It is difficult to measure creativity or the value of experiencing a new piece of music or sharing an original poem or the impact of researching information from a broad range of sources- but I feel that there is still room for qualitative experiences in the 21st Century classroom and that netbooks or laptops can be a tool to do this.

Ideas for making a lesson more Qualitative:

• What choices will the student have for representing their mastery of a topic?
• What collaborative tool might the student be able to access during this lesson?
• How can technology be used as part of the reflection process either before, during or after the lesson?
• What web-based tools might the student access to expand their creative thinking abilities in this lesson?
• What tools might the student be able to access to help them map their ideas?
• What opportunities will the student be given to research information from opposing or different points of view in order to draw their own conclusions on a topic?
  

Related Articles
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21iht-currents.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
http://astoriedcareer.com/2009/12/what-stories-can-do-that-metri.html
http://blog.ubervu.com/