Pam's Music

Is there a place for technology in music education where students want to be part of a dynamic community?  Education that emphasizes the need for human beings to learn through a ‘hands-on’ approach in communities (John Dewey), is often embraced by elementary and middle school music teachers, but this hands-on approach where college classes of 25 or more play or sing together seems to get lost.  The sheer joy of music making with pitched and unpitched percussion, and drum circles are pushed aside for learning music technology.  Of course if we are catering for those music careers out there that 50 years ago was never thought of, it is imperative that educators embrace technology.  

As a teenager in the 70’s, I remember technology such as LP, 45, Vinyl record, tape, tape recorder, and the odd microphone.  A disruption as a marching girl when I was 8-12 years of age saw our instructor bursting at the seams with excitement when she managed to buy a portable record player. This meant that one person didn’t have to yell left, right, left, right hopefully in metronomic time.  Now our team of 10 proceeded the drills up and down the field to marching music.  Depending on the weather the sound was amazing (or so we thought).   

My music education consisted of theory in the classroom, a little singing and learning the piano.  I had no idea there was such a thing as a saxophone, clarinet etc.  But I knew there were acoustic guitars and drums.  The only composition that I saw was done by memory, ear or writing on stave paper.  What a blessing when I was asked to become a classroom music teacher of 5-12 year olds.  I had only ever taught piano, but I decided my classrooms were going to be so much fun.  Hands-on community learning proved to be very popular with this age and I have now found that it is also very popular with older students as well.  I went from a very well resourced primary school music department to very little resources in the college.  So a lot of thinking outside the square was employed.  Buckets, homemade shakers and donated boomwhackers introduced the students to rhythm and fun - a community of learners.  However, I was ever thankful that at this age the students were allowed to use their phones.  That was the most up-to-date technology offered.  Chelsea Waite in an education blog offers the idea that school resources are often limited, but that we must not ignore what students can offer.   She suggests that rather than thinking of the student as a product, we should think of them as those who contribute value, those who contribute as members of a learning community.  Communities such as hands-on classrooms.  

In an environment where phones were seen as being disruptive, I soon found that they were a real tool.  My students were also using their phones to communicate, access entertainment and for “browsing the web” to learn whatever takes their fancy in an instant.   Their phones became voice recorders, browsers, providers of background music, providers of sheet music, music quizzes, research encyclopedia, sound engineering tool.   When being introduced to the Northern Beaches school the question raised  was not whether the role of the teacher should change, but how it should change.   The students in this school use their devices to access entertainment and for learning whatever they like. 

In the Clayton Christensen Institute  (https://www.christenseninstitute.org/), Thomas Arnett reflected in 2014 why the theory of disruptive innovation is so important to education.  The theory “explains the phenomenon by which an innovation transforms an existing market or sector by introducing simplicity, convenience, accessibility and affordability where complication and high cost are the status quo”.  Arnett suggests that a new product or idea eventually redefines an industry after a time of being unattractive.   So do we ask the question: Is Technology in the music classroom Disruptive? 

I believe it is important to think of our students as a resource and not a product of our teaching.  If we disrupt our thinking in this way, we (the teacher) will also become part of the learning community.  This way we all can embrace individual ways of learning and understanding each other's culture, using whatever medium the students is most comfortable with.  

I now have up-to-date computers in the classroom and this has meant that we can offer DAWs programmes, notation programmes, faster browser processing and the beginning of recording studios.  I enjoy the best of both worlds where the students enjoy community music making but we are also uplifted by the opportunities every growing technology can offer in our learning and towards our careers in the modern world.

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