Novel Means in Teaching Music from a Distance

Anat Sharon

The Open University of Israel

108 Ravutzki st., POB 808

Raanana 43107

ISRAEL

Tel.: +972 97781992

Email:

Abstract

Despite the advantages of multimedia in creating meaningful and engaging learning, teaching academic music courses from a distance hasunique limitations, due to the lack of direct interaction between students and teacher, the need to combine several learning sources simultaneously and the lack of tools to create integration between them. To overcome some of these limitations, novel instructional technologies can be implemented in the learning process.This paper describes how a course Internet siteis used in teaching the "Opera"course at the Open University of Israel, and discusses the advantages of integrating instructional technologies into music distance learning courses.

Introduction

The Open University of Israel (OUI) offers its students 11 academic courses in music appreciation, music history and music repertoire. All are distance courses, based mainly on the traditional model of distance teaching at the OUI, e.g., learning from printed course books, 6-13 face-to-face tutorials per semester, and assignments that are mailed to an instructor who corrects and grades them. The music courses were accompanied by a set of analog cassette recordings of musical selections (currently replaced by compact discs) and in some courses also by video programs and video-taped performances. However, over many years of teaching it became clear to the academic staff that teaching music from a distance involves major difficulties and limitations, and that the common model of distance teaching is inadequate for many music courses. The main difficulty stems from the fact that music instruction requires a high degree of interaction between the student, the teacher and the learning material, while traditional distance teaching enables only a limited degree of interaction and feedback. Moreover, the linear structure of a printed music course lacks the essential synchronization between the various components of music instruction, such as reading music, musical demonstrations and aural explanations. The student, whose knowledge of music theory may be limited, needs to read the text, locate the musical sample on the audio tape or the CD player, follow the musical score, and in the case of operas, also read the translation of the libretto from the screen while listening attentively to the music. When these different learning materials are provided in two or more separate components, following all of them at one time can be confusing, and the student often loses the logical track that links them. These limitations raise the question whether teaching academic courses in music from a distance is at all possible (Isaacson, 2001).

The intensive integration of multimedia and the Internet into distance learning courses in recent years has provided new options in music education (Brandon, 1999; Clifford, 1999; Isaacson, 2001, Sharon, 2005), although many of the Internet components in a music course require a fast and broad-band Internet connection. There is a growing evidence for the effect of "real-time learning" that takes place when learning occurs by using simultaneously different media resources (Eshet & Chaiut, in press; Eshet in press). This issue is illustrated by the approach and design discussed in the present paper.

An Internet Site for Facilitating Distance Learning of Music

At theOUI, Internet sites have been constructed for all academic courses offered by the university. The sites serve as the main communication channel between students and tutors, and offer learning and enrichment materials, as well as assistance in learning. In teaching music from a distance, the Internet site is especially useful for students with only a limited musical background. Presented here is the Internet site of the "Opera" course (Fig. 1), a course for which previous musical knowledge is not a requirement. The Internet site contains the following components:

Figure 1: Home Page of the "Opera" course

  • A notice board(located at the center of the course Home Page) used by the tutor and/or course coordinator to send announcements to the students rapidly and economically.
  • Discussion group ("Forum" [1]), in which the students can discuss with each other and/or with the tutor or the course coordinator various study topics, ask questions and receive clarifications about the written study materials or about their homework assignments, recommend Internet sites,recordings, interesting events or articles, share lesson summariesetc..
  • Support and additional study materials for enrichment [2]. These pages include music notes, recordings, illustrations and links to a music glossary (Fig. 2).

Figure 2: Enrichment page, which includes music notes, recordings and links to the glossary

The enrichment materials also include instructional video films produced by the OUI, presented by an actor. These filmsshow original performances of selected scenes from the operas discussed in the course. Each film is divided into titled sections (on the right column) that allow the students to navigate within the film according to the specific topic under discussion (Fig. 3).

Figure 3: A frame from the instructional video film

  • An interactive hyperlinked glossary of musical terms [3], which includes audio samples and selections of musical works that exemplify the term defined. Each musical term used within a particular definition is linked to its specific definition (Fig. 4).

Figure 4:A definition of musical term in the Internet site's interactive hyperlinked glossary, which includes audio (midi) sample of the notes used in the definition

  • Links to various Internet sites [4] that deal with the study subject, and that broaden its scope or provide visual elaborations not included in the course study materials. These links are presentedduring the semestergradually, in accordance with the topic being studied.
  • A study guide [5], which directs the students, stage by stage, in how to contend with the different components of the study materials, how to make their learning process efficient, and how to cope with the assignments and prepare for the final examinations.
  • Some of the assignmentsin the "Opera" course are sharedassignments, using special softwaredeveloped by the Holon Academic Institute of Technology, Israel [6]. Here the students can compare their answers to those of other students, comment on the answers of others and gather all the information for preparing for the final examination (fig. 5).

Help │my groups │my activities│all activities│new activity

view study erase duplicate edit contribute view type of name of

results groups activity activity activity activity activity activity

Figure 5: The "Shared Assignment" software (tutor's view)

  • The students receive authoritative answers to theirassignments from the course coordinator after the final due-date [7].
  • A detailed guide helps the students to navigate through the site's pages [8].
  • Exemplary examinationsare presented, assisting the students to prepare for the final exams [9].
  • The students may use a personalnotebook [10], where they can write notes for personal use, save materials from the course site and keep them for preparingfor the examination. The personal notebook accompanies the students throughout their studies at OUI in all their courses.
  • Other links on the course Home Page enable the students to receive announcements from the OUI administration [11], connect to the library Internet site [12] and view the calendar of the course activities [13].
  • The students can submit their assignments and receive them back with the tutor's comments through the course Internet site []. Not only does this speed up the process of remitting and receivingback the corrected assignments, it also provides for a copy of the assignment to remain with the tutor for future reference. Grades are transmitted automatically and directly to the administration.
  • With the spread of the chat-room culture, an increasing number of students use the chat-room of the course site [].

Students' Use of the Course Internet Site

The following statistics show the students' entries to the course Internet site during the months of March 2005 (the first month of thesemester) and June 2005 (the last month of the semester, during which they prepare for the final examinations). There were 18 students in the course group at the time.

Overall Statistics Report for March 2005

(Figures in parentheses refer to the 7-day period ending on31-Mar-2005 at24:00)

Successful requests: 6,079 (1,482)
Average successful requests per day: 196 (211)
Successful requests for pages: 6,026 (1,457)
Average successful requests for pages per day: 194 (208)
Failed requests: 178 (89) Redirected requests: 141 (23)
Distinct files requested: 82 (57) Distinct hosts served: 939 (257)
Corrupt logfile lines: 2 Unwanted logfile entries: 1,341
Data transferred: 260.83 megabytes (56.83 megabytes)
Average data transferred per day: 8.42 megabytes (8.12 megabytes)

The following report lists the activity in each week:

(Each unit () represents 60 requests or part thereof)

Week beg. Reqs.Pages%pages

27/Feb/05: 608: 608: 10.09%:

6/Mar/05: 1246: 1231: 20.43%:

13/Mar/05: 1311: 1311: 21.76%:

20/Mar/05: 1671: 1658: 27.51%:

27/Mar/05: 1243: 1218: 20.21%:

Overall Statistics Report for June 2005

(Figures in parentheses refer to the 7-day period ending on30-Jun-2005at 24:00)

Successful requests: 7,995 (2,545)
Average successful requests per day: 267 (363)
Successful requests for pages: 7,441 (2,350)
Average successful requests for pages per day: 248 (335)
Failed requests: 99 (25) Redirected requests: 387 (245)
Distinct files requested: 59 (48) Distinct hosts served: 945 (274)
Corrupt logfile lines: 3 Unwanted logfile entries: 3,471
Data transferred: 285.96 megabytes (100.78 megabytes)
Average data transferred per day: 9.55 megabytes (14.40 megabytes)

Thefollowing report lists the activity in each week:

(Each unit () represents 80 requests or part thereof)

Week beg. Reqs. Pages%pages

29/May/05: 886: 830: 11.15%:

5/Jun/05: 2343: 2235: 30.04%:

12/Jun/05: 1438: 1324: 17.79%:

19/Jun/05: 1173: 1043: 14.02%:

26/Jun/05: 2155: 2009: 27.00%:

With the spread of the Forums culture, an increasing number of students use the course Forum frequently. The Forum of the spring semester of 2005 contained 8 web pages, with more than 400 messages.

This extensive use of the course Internet site shows that it answers a real need for the students and provides an intensive help in the learning process.

The URLof the"Opera"home page:

Most of the site's pages can be accessed with the user's password only. The passwordis given to the students of the current semester only. However, the glossary of musical terms is open to all.

References

  • Brandon, S. (1999) Pedagogical Solutions for Web-Based Music History Courses: Technological Directions in Music Learning. Proceedings of the Sixth International Technological Directions in Music Learning Conference, 1999; also on-line, Accessed July 2005
  • Clifford, R. (1999) Web-Based Instruction for Fundamental Musical Concepts:Technological Directions in Music Learning. Proceedings of the Sixth International Technological Directions in Music Learning Conference, 1999. Accessed May 2002; also on-line, accessed July 2005
  • Isaacson, E. J. (2001) Music Learning Online: Evaluating the Promise. National Association of Schools of Music Annual Meeting, Dallas, TX, November 17-20, 2001; also on-line, , accessed July 2005
  • Loya, S. , Sharon, A., Epstein, A., Mermelstein, B., Perl, B. and Klemens, J., Virtual Schubert: The Teaching ofMusic from a Distance, in: Lifelong Learning in the Networked World - 21st ICDEWorld Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education, The Open University ofHong Kong, Feb. 2004; also in: Prof. Antonis Lionarakis, ed., Open Education Journal - The Journal for Open and Distance Education and Educational Technology, Hellenic Network for Open and Distance Education, vol. 1, March 2005
  • Eshet, Y., Real-Time Thinking: A Model for Digital Thinking Skills Revised,in: Haward, C., Bottcher, J.V., Justice, L., Schenk, K., Rogers, P.L., Berg, G,A. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Distance Learning, Vol. III. London, Idea Group Inc. (in press)
  • Eshet, Y., Chaiut, E.,Living Books: On the Acquisition of Reading Skills in Multimedia Environments,in: Learning in the Technology Era – proceedings of the Chais Conference, The Open University of Israel, Raanana, pp. 15-25 (in press)

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