‘Is it okay to use the mobile phone?’ Student use of information technology in pop-band rehearsals in Swedish music education
Publication details
| Year: | 2015 |
| DOI: | 10.1386/jmte.8.1.71_1 |
| Issued: | 2015 |
| Language: | English |
| Volume: | 8 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Start Page: | 71 |
| End Page: | 93 |
| Editors: | |
| Authors: | Wallerstedt C.; Hillman T. |
| Type: | Journal article |
| Journal: | Journal of Music, Technology and Education |
| Publisher: | Intellect |
| Topics: | Learning; Internet usage, practices and engagement |
| Sample: | Two 9th-grade (16-year-olds) music classes were observed and video recorded over an eight-week period with the students working on a band project in a school in Sweden where a one-to-one laptop project had been implemented. In addition, almost all of the students in the participating classes owned a private mobile phone that they brought with them to class. In total, there were 47 students in the two classes: 26 boys and 21 girls. |
| Implications For Educators About: | School innovation; Professional development; Other |
| Implications For Stakeholders About: | Researchers |
Abstract
his study examines IT use by year-9 students performing in pop ensembles, drawing on eight weeks of video observations. The data are analysed with a sociocultural perspective on what tools are used, what meanings they mediate and how they are socially constructed. The results show that, while notations were exclusively down- loaded from the Internet and almost all students used mobile phones to listen to the songs they performed, other types of IT use were rare. To illustrate more extensive use, one case involving how to play the bridge in a song has been analysed in detail. This speaks to the broader finding of the study that the availability of IT and the potential for seeking information and creating music implies little on its own for how technology is used in music classrooms. Pedagogical implications are discussed in relation to the intersection between formal and informal learning and IT use in music education.
Outcome
"The availability of Internet-connected mobile technology and its enormous potential for seeking information and creating music implies little on its own for how it is used in music classrooms. The social context in which the technology is used and the practices in which it is included frame how its mean- ing is negotiated, and this leads to certain pedagogical implications. It is clear from this study that access to the technology, widespread use outside school and even the invitation to use it in the classroom are not enough for students to be able to make effective use of it as part of their in-school musical learn- ing activities. Music teachers need to both initiate and guide the use of mobile technologies in order to help students to bridge their experiences and the skills they develop inside and outside of school. The study also points to a need for teachers to consider who experiences ownership over an informally inspired formal music education project that includes access to technologies most commonly associated with out-of-school life. Who owns ‘the problem’, the resources available and, by extension, the solution to it?" (Authors, 90)