The Benefits of Digitization of the Music Classroom

Posted by Jo Murphy Mar 1, 2009

The articles How to Plan Diversely Structured Music Classes and How To Teach Guitar Using YouTube.com Vignettes clearly indicate that the Internet has made a tremendous difference to the availability of quality resources freely accessible to teachers and students throughout the world.

One of the consequences of this freedom is that students can race ahead of the teacher if they are passionately enthused about playing an instrument. So long as the teacher is equipped to deal with this it makes teaching all the better.

Some teachers may struggle to

• offer a wide enough variety of activities to keep students engaged
• find ways to manage self directed learning
• utlise space so that students can pursue different activities without distracting each other
• keep students on track and focused on assessment tasks

Both of the articles call for teachers to keep experimenting until they find a balanced approach that works for all members of the class.

One of the rewards of learning to manage the digital revolution is that classes can participate in online communities. This gives them the opportunity to upload their own musical work and to receive and give feedback to others. Well equipped classrooms experience a rich source of inspiration once unheard of.