Has Digital Technology Conquered the Music Room?

Walking into a classroom, one finds a piano, a board with staves, and posters of composers and instruments. That classroom is the stereotypical music room found in American public schools. But will those items suffice in 21st century music education classes? Will music classrooms only need a computer? Classrooms around the country are homes to new digital technology to keep up with the advancement and permanency of digital technology in the lives of the school children.

What about the schools that are not bringing devices into the classroom to make musical instruction digitally animated? Are they hindering the children’s musical abilities and growth? How does digital technology affect the music students around the country?

This is an examination of two classrooms that have different technological capabilities and how it not only has molded the students’ expectations of the instruction, but also influences how teachers are able to instruct to the district’s curriculum and national music education standards.These classrooms are located 20 minutes apart from each other.

School A

An affluent suburban school district prides itself in providing cutting edge technology for its students and staff. This school year, the district issued iPads for every enrolled student. Teachers were given an Apple laptop that they designed individually to their own tastes for professional use. Textbooks are not assigned, but are now supplementing the all-digital-born curriculum. SMARTBoards are now becoming passé as school board officials are looking into newer technologies. Worksheets are uploaded into Clouds instead of passing out physical copies with efforts to save paper. The worksheet are filled out on the iPad and are submitted electronically. And in a middle school, an initiative program in its second year is accepting applications for an exclusive, nearly self-led instruction where students are taught by preloaded programs on the iPad.

One of the district’s middle school band teachers began the year with maternity leave. A long-term substitute teacher filled in for two months. The students had band on alternating days, but were expected to practice everyday. Half of the band students were beginning band for the first time. Band students need to know rudimentary musical terms and symbols (notes, rests, key signatures, dynamics). Although the information was in the lesson/band book, the students did not necessarily notice the information.

Instead, they students wanted to use technology teach them the concepts. A popular resource that the teacher used was Kahoot!, an iPad application that quizzes students on information. The game syncs up to the SMARTBoard and creates a trivia game using questions, answers, and pictures put in by the teacher. The students created their own account and username (often quite humorous) and they were pitted against each other to see who answered correctly. Through observation, the students were extremely engaged in the competition. Also through observation, the knowledge was not applied or recognized when the students were performing band music or on the written exam.

Another mode of assessment used by the teacher was having the student video record their self performing an excerpt of music. While recording oneself performing for learning purposes is not new, filming oneself is a newer concept, especially at the grade school level. This method is used by the teacher because there is no time in her schedule for individual lessons. She also hopes the students will watch the video and to learn from it.

School B

In a small rural school district, a teacher travels back and forth to teach elementary music at two different schools. The district’s elementary classrooms are not digitally advanced: they use VHS tapes on a regular basis, they have an overhead projector, and in order to play anything on the internet, the students need to watch the teacher’s computer screen from a distance or the teacher needs to check out a portable computer cart from the library. The textbooks are over twenty-years old and has corresponding LPs, audio tapes, and CDs.

To plan, the teacher needs to rely heavily on her own delivery techniques to get her students’ attention and interest. She thinks on her feet and follows the flow of the classroom’s conversation. The homeroom classrooms have SMARTBoards, making the teacher’s persuasive powers even more imperative.

The band program starts in the elementary school and shares their space and technology with the elementary music teacher. He has to travel back and forth between the two schools to teach grades 5-6 band. He has to rely on his delivery and energy in order to keep the students’ interest and attention. The band teacher teaches the musical terms and symbols through speaking, demonstrating, and using the books as a resource to subconsciously reinforce the lesson book as a resource.

For assessments, the band teacher has the opportunity to have students come in small group lessons and to work with the students in a smaller setting. The elementary music teacher grades and communicates individually through worksheets. Group projects consist of working with large sheets of butcher block paper and markers. For performance assessments, students are called upon to perform in front of their classmates either as a solo or in small groups.

Overall Observations

By observing these two school districts, it seems as though the students are most invested in the content they are learning when it is instructed through non-digitally advanced technology. The students at School A have a harder time recalling the information when they are questioned on it in a practical, real-time setting. The students at School B rely on their own senses and can bring the practiced learning styles anywhere because it is not reliant on technology.

The deviceless rooms creates an easier opportunity for the music to come to life through human energy. The teacher is able to focus on the students and the quality of their delivery rather than dividing their attention between the students and the computer that is not loading, the student’s device that is almost dying, and the student that does not know where to click.

It is the physical, non-digital methods that are more memorable to the students because the teacher and the students become physically invested in the learning and musical process. It gives the students a break from their electronic devices and forces them to develop their own senses and capabilities.

There are successful cases of using digital technology in the classroom, such as bringing music around the world into the classroom and for easier, faster modes of communication between the teacher and parent, but overall, the music is a subject of human expression. The music and its instruction is richer when it is done by a human, not as much by a computer.

So don't be too hasty to ditch the piano, the staves, and the posters just yet. They may still serve a purpose in 21st century classrooms.

Eleanor Peterson, a Minnesota native, is a music educator in Wisconsin. She is the teacher who experienced both of these classroom settings in the 2014-2015 school year. She prefers the Kodály and Dalcroze methods of instruction.