Technology diffusion in higher education music
9 pages
Published by
Barbara McLain
Copyright :
All rights reserved
Technology Diffusion in Higher Education Music Programs: A Pilot Study
Barbara Payne McLain, University of Hawaii-Manoa
In his introductory essay on the College Music Society (CMS) website, Douglass Seaton,
former CMS president, provided...
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Technology Diffusion in Higher Education Music Programs: A Pilot Study
Barbara Payne McLain, University of Hawaii-Manoa
In his introductory essay on the College Music Society (CMS) website, Douglass Seaton,
former CMS president, provided a strong warning about the increasing rate of societal changes and
their potential impact on higher education music programs.
1
His predictions that “our
environment would become increasingly electronic, knowledge would continue to explode,
cultural diversity will increase, and change itself will continue to accelerate,” provide an incentive
for higher education music programs to proactively examine their status and begin planning for a
technologically advanced future.
2
Technology is re-shaping our society on a daily basis.
The accelerating pace of societal changes as a result of technological advances is staggering.
As Moore’s Law predicted in 1965, computer capabilities are doubling and their costs halved
every eighteen months.
3
Handwritten letters are a thing of the past.
Electronic mail has replaced
the personal phone call.
Digital recordings and the internet now allow musicians and audiences
virtually unlimited access to recorded and printed music.
The numbers of institutions providing
undergraduate or graduate instruction in music via the internet continue to grow annually.
College
students are equipped with any number of electronic devices to facilitate communication and
access to information.
USA Today recently reported that college students or their parents plan to
spend $8.
2 billion on electronics in 2005, almost $700 million more than last year.
4
Are college music programs unique among disciplines in embracing or rejecting new
technologies? In this report, I provide some pilot data concerning the use of technology by
college music faculty, and discuss possible solutions to several barriers impacting the diffusion of
technology in higher education music classrooms.
Technology In Higher Education
Technological advances may be categorized as “products” or “ideas.
”5
Product technologies
include tools such as computers, digital conversion software, multi-media mechanisms, cellular
phones, etc.
.
Idea technologies, on the other hand, focus on innovations in the teaching-learning
process that utilize product technologies, thus expanding their original capability.
An example of
this would be the use of handheld computers to “beam” digital music files presented in a music
history course.
The handheld computer and wireless technology was not originally designed to
facilitate music history instruction.
It’s use in this context becomes an “idea” technology.
Higher education, although touting itself as the bastion of new knowledge, appears to be
reluctant in general, to embrace any technology beyond basic student and faculty services.
As
Edward Ayers, a Dean at the University of Virginia, stated:
“While advances in information technology seemed to have transformed
every other part of life, the core of academe is essentially unchanged.
…
Despite the tremendous investment that all institutions of higher education
1
Seaton, Douglass.
(1998).
Music and American higher education.
[Online]
http://www.
music.
org/InfoEdMusic/HigherEd/SumTable.
html [accessed March 28, 2005] Missoula, MT: College
Music Society.
2
Ibid.
p.
3
3
Moore, G.
(1965).
Cramming more components onto integrated circuits.
Electronics, 38, 8.
4
Grant, L.
(2005).
College students expected to load up on gadgets.
USA Today, August 16, 2005.
5
Surry, D.
& Land, S.
(2000).
Strategies for motivating higher education faculty to use technology.
Innovations in
Education & Training International, 37, 2, 145-154.
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