Article Summary

1. CITATION OF THE ARTICLE

Leman, M., (April 2014), Interactive Technologies In The Instrumental Music Classroom:
A Longitudinal Study With The Music Paint Machine, Computers In Education, Vol. 73,
Pgs. 40-59

2. ANALYE THE LOGIC OF THE ARTICLE
a. Can interactive technologies be used in the music classroom? And if they are, can
they be effective enough?
b. In our world today, technology is booming and more and more people are finding
ways to use it in a classroom setting. Interactive music technology can be used to
develop movement in students that can be evaluated and students get more visual
feedback. This allows for a more effective learning process. Technology also provides
non-biased feedback on a students work that is less likely to be misinterpreted by the
student. While it may take a few days for a teacher to get back to a student on how they
did on a test or performance, the interactive technology provides feedback right away
which may increase motivation in the student.
c. The author of the article conducts an experiment where he takes twelve 7 and 8 year
olds and teaches them clarinet. 6 of them have traditional instruction and 6 are taught
with an interactive program called the Music Paint Machine. The sample was to small to
gather strong qualitative and quantitative results, but the study found that with the colors
and technology students were more motivated and developed better practice habits than
the students who got traditional instruction.

3. EVALUATION OF THE AUTHOR'S REASONING
Evaluate the argument:
a. The conclusion follows the premise to an extent, the author ran into some problems
while conducting the experiment like how the standardized testing for rhythmic and
tonality in a child is flawed. There were also too many uncontrollable variables in the
experiment like home life, and involvement of the parents. The conclusion is relevant
because he discusses how we can use technology to create more exciting lesson plans
for students so they are more motivated to learn.
b. The information is not completely accurate, again there are too many variables that
cannot be controlled. And testing the students on musicality was also dependent on their
personality and concentration that day.

4. FOCUS ON IMPLICATIONS
I am interested in this topic because as a student I felt like there was so much
technology out there but none of it was really integrated in the classroom. I also liked this
article because it talked about Gordons music learning theory with movement, which I
am currently studying. I believe the connection of visual and performing arts should be
utilized more in the music classroom