When I arrived at Ithaca College in 1992, it turned out to be a rather opportune time. The School of Music was in the beginning stages of planning for a much-needed addition to the current facility. As discussions and various planning meetings took place, it became very obvious that there was quite a bit of support from both the faculty and administration for a significant technology component as part of this new facility. At that point in time, the music theory department had six Mac IIsi and LC III computers housed in the AV center on the top floor of the library. Some faculty had computers in their office–mostly Mac SE’s and SE/30’s–and none were networked.
The next few years saw the rapid growth of computer use across campus, as well as in the music school. More and more faculty were requesting computers and network connections as part of the capital budget process, and there was growing pressure on the academic computing support department to create a strong, centralized system and to install a campus backbone that would connect to all facilities. As this growth was occurring across campus, we in the music school were in the process of formalizing our plans for the new facility. The building committee was working closely with the architects to finalize the overall design while several other committees were implemented to review and make recommendations concerning specific areas within the facility. One of those committees, the Technology Advisory Group, was responsible for reviewing suggestions and making specific recommendations concerning the implementation of state-of-the-art technologies within the music school, including facilities, curriculum, and staffing. It is the work of this committee and the final results that I would like to discuss in this paper.
The TAG committee consisted of representatives from each of the three departments within the music school: Performance, Music Education, and Theory, History, Comp. It was important to us from the start to make sure the technology area was not viewed as belonging to any one particular department. For the purposes of this presentation, I will separate the three primary areas of facility, faculty, and curriculum with the understanding that these discussions took place concurrently and decisions in one area certainly had an effect in another area. For example, it is impossible to discuss curriculum without issues of faculty entering in.
As we began our deliberations, it became clear that there were quite a few different ideas about what this new facility was to be used for, and how it was to be organized and maintained. As you might expect, the first suggestion was to do a survey of several institutions that have technology facilities or are prominent in the field of Music Technology. We drew up a list of 18 institutions and asked various members of the committee to contact them and find out what type of facility they have and how it is maintained, staffed, and funded.
Sometimes things happen that effect your plans in ways you don’t expect. We began our planning expecting a room that we could set up as a lab and classroom with MIDI workstations, an instructor’s station, printer, scanner and other necessary equipment. After several architectural design changes, we found ourselves with two rooms available for the facility. At this point we quickly started planning for a teaching room with an open student lab next to it. The classroom was set up with twenty workstations, each consisting of a PowerMac G3 and a multi-timbral MIDI keyboard. Five of these workstations are equipped as complete multimedia development stations including a dual cassette deck, stereo VCR, and video monitor. Every station has the capability of audio/video in and out so we have the flexibility of connecting additional equipment to any computer. All machines have a direct network connection. The room has a built-in overhead projection system connected to the teachers workstation, a complete stereo system, a high-capacity laser printer, color scanner, and CD burner. One problem that we weren’t able to completely resolve to our satisfaction has to do with the physical setup of the room. Because of the depth of the room, we had to place some of the computers alternating back-to-back, which created a slight line-of sight problem for students at some of the stations. This is something we haven’t resolved, but the students have been good about working around it.
The student lab is configured in a similar fashion. There are 18 PowerMac G3’s with MIDI keyboards, three multimedia stations, black & white and color laser printers, and a scanner connected to the monitor’s station. The lab is staffed by work study students, hired by the music school specifically for this facility. All the monitors are music majors with advanced computer skills and a working knowledge of most of the software programs.
The committee felt strongly about the specific configurations in these two rooms. When we were told we had to cut either the overhead projection system or some of the software we requested because of budget constraints, we decided to cover the budget decrease by cutting three workstations rather than lessening the overall capabilities of the facility. Fortunately, this didn’t create too much of a problem, because the equipment was installed in May and we were able to get the money for the deleted workstations into the capital budget for the next fiscal year. As a result, we had these three workstations installed well before the beginning of classes.
We did spend some time debating what type of computer to use. The question always comes up whether you should use Macs, PCs, or mix the platforms. Since the music building had always been strictly Mac-based, we decided to maintain that consistency with the understanding that the courses, as much as possible, stress cross-platform techniques. The composition workroom and the Electroacoustic studio also maintained the Macintosh format so it makes it easier for our students to move from one computer room to another within the building.
Faculty
The issue of faculty was one in which there was considerable disagreement among the committee members. Due to the rapid growth in technology use among the faculty and an initiative from the college’s new president, we had approximately 140 computers in the building by the fall of 1999. The committee was unanimous in its belief that we needed someone in the building who’s job it was to oversee the technology component of the music school much the same way the percussion faculty oversees the percussion equipment in the building. The nature of this position was the issue. Several members felt that this should be a staff position who’s duties would include managing the lab facilities, serving as a basic trouble shooter for faculty when minor problems arose, and teaching an introductory course in music technology. One of the arguments for this was that a staff position would likely attract a person with the technological skills necessary to maintain the equipment and be able to handle basic software and hardware emergencies.
The remainder of the committee felt the position should be a faculty line primarily because the position would probably involve teaching a number of courses. While there were current faculty members with the skills to teach these courses, there was no way to rearrange their schedules to cover technology classes without hiring a new faculty person to cover their other classes. Most of the universities we surveyed use either faculty or TA’s to teach the tech courses, with only a couple that rely on staff positions. On this issue, the committee was deadlocked. The final decision was made by the Dean, in consultation with the head of the academic computer support department. Our school has a centralized support structure, and the person in this position would have to work well with the support personnel. It was their feeling, based on previous experience, that a faculty position would work out better than a staff line. Therefore, the Dean put together a search committee and we did a national search for a new faculty line in Music Technology.
Curriculum
Our discussions on curriculum began with the NASM standards, which state:
Through study and laboratory experience, students should be made familiar with the capabilities of technology as they relate to composition, performance, analysis, teaching, and research.
Along with this, the New York state standards for initial teacher certification states, within the pedagogical core:
The program shall provide study that will permit candidates to obtain the following pedagogical knowledge, understanding, and skills: (vi) uses of technology, including instructional and assistive technology, in teaching and learning–and skill in using technology and teaching students to use technology to acquire information, communicate, and enhance learning.
Our undergraduate student population is approximately 2/3 music education majors, so these standards played a significant role in our deliberations. In order to give our education majors adequate study in the area of technology, we first asked ourselves the three following general questions:
The question of curricular integration was actually settled fairly quickly. Both of the approaches have positive aspects, and both present certain logistical problems. Our initial inclination was to attempt to integrate these skills. Notation and sequencing software would fit well into the theory curriculum, and web-based research tools and CAI software could be added to the junior seminar that all our education majors are required to take. The problem we ran into was the question of setting aside enough instructional time to meet our goals. After a relatively short discussion, we decided that the best way to meet our goal was to develop new courses that specifically focus on these skills. The problem here involves credit hour allocation in a degree program that is already pushing the limit. We decided to begin with a combination of required and elective courses as we review the various degree programs.
In order to answer the second question, we began by identifying a set of outcomes, based not only on our understanding of the above standards, but our belief that if we are going to implement a new curriculum we need to do the best job we can within the confines of our resources. Our outcomes included both a minimum set and extensions that students can explore more fully based on individual time and interests. Some of these outcomes are:
As we studied this list, it became obvious that we would need a series of courses to help our students attain these goals. Some of these outcomes presented another slight problem for us. The college is very conscious of duplication of effort and in order to get a new course approved, we have to convince an all-college curriculum committee that the course content we are proposing cannot be met by any current course offered on campus. This was a particular concern in courses involving productivity tools and HTML. These materials are taught in some general computer courses offered on campus, but very few of our students are able to take these courses because of scheduling and time conflicts. Since we felt it is important that our education students have these skills, we had to convince the all-college committee that our focus was the application of these skills to the music profession.
The final question, concerning sequencing, led us to our initial set of course offerings. We discussed several options, and settled on three courses that would allow us to offer our students a fairly complete curriculum. Each level is designed to build on previous knowledge, as well as add a new level of difficulty, or complexity. In general terms, the first course teaches general user skills, the second course focuses on instructional or pedagogical skills, and the third course introduces higher levels of interactivity and developmental skills.
Specifically, our first course, "Introduction to Computer Technology for Musicians," is structured around three primary units: Productivity Tools, Sequencing Software, and Notation Software. This course is currently required for all incoming music education majors and recording majors. The first unit introduces students to web-based search tools and methods of locating information both on the Ithaca College LAN and the WWW, as well as various types of network structures and protocols. This unit also involves working with database and spreadsheet programs and ways they can be applied in various teaching situations. The second unit introduces concepts of MIDI, necessary hardware, and sequencing software. We work mainly with the General MIDI Standard and introduce the students to most of the capabilities of an entry level sequencing package. The final unit is designed to teach the students basic skills using some of the most prominent notation packages currently available.
"Computer Technology in Music Education" is the second level course, and it is currently an elective course. One of the primary reasons for its elective status is that it received final approval from the all-college committee late last semester so it has only recently changed status from an experimental course. The next step is to find a way to fit it into the required curriculum for our education majors. This course is also designed with a tri-partite structure. In Unit 1, students review currently available CAI software. We preview and discuss as a class several existing programs and then each student selects a couple of applications that fits their particular level and area of expertise for further review and evaluation. The second unit involves the creation of an informational web site for their school music program. Support skills for this unit include basic techniques in digital audio, digital video, scanning, and graphics. This unit has actually evolved slightly in that some of the extremely successful projects have involved web sites for private teaching studios as well as HTML-based portfolios that the students then burned onto a CD. In the final unit, students work with presentation software as a means of creating teaching materials appropriate to their grade level.
The final course in this sequence is entitled "Interactive Multimedia Design for Musicians." It is currently an experimental course and is being taught for the first time this semester. The goal of this course is to give students the opportunity to work and experiment with some of the more advanced interactive capabilities of different multimedia authoring platforms. This will involve web-based interactivity using a combination of HTML and JavaScript, interactivity using a card-based platform such a Hypercard and its built-in scripting language in combination with externals such as HyperMIDI and the Voyager CD commands, and time-based multimedia using Director. The student’s final project will involve selecting one of these approaches and creating a rather extensive example appropriate to their particular situation.
One final hurdle we had to overcome was the issue of course numbering. The introductory course was designated as a freshman level course receiving a 100-level number. The "Computer Technology in Music Education" course was a little more problematic. It was initially conceived as a sophomore- or junior-level course, but none of our students actually have time to take it during those years, especially the junior level. We also wanted to have a block version (half semester) of this course so people who student teach would have this available to them during the half of the semester that aren’t student teaching. Ultimately, we settled on a senior level designation, but in order to do that we had to establish three pre-requisites and designate this course as a "capstone" experience. In the long run, I think this worked out for the best because we were able to designate the two semesters of junior student teaching as pre-requisites. This accomplished one thing that we felt was important: the students will have had some experience in the schools before they can take this course. It is hoped that this will give the students a better understanding of what they will be doing as teachers, and some perspective on how they might be able to apply various aspects of technology.
As we have been gradually implementing this curriculum, a rather large gap was noticed between the freshman and senior years. We are already considering other courses that can fill in that gap and build on skills learned in the introductory course. I have already proposed a sophomore level advanced notation course, and we are looking at revamping the advanced sequencer course currently taught by a music professor with expertise in electroacoustics. It is hoped that this series of courses will help our students gain technological skills that will serve them well as they join the teaching profession.