Friday, March 24, 2006

Music Teching Needs Web 2.0 and Ed Tech 2.0

In visiting the "giants" of music education technology such as ATMI (Association for Technology in Music Instruction) or TI:ME (Technology Institute for Music Educators), I am struck by an apparent lack of awareness of a new level of technology that includes building and sharing through interaction of individuals as opposed to the expert keeper of knowledge who is willing to help you if (and only if) you are willing to buy.

Thus TI:ME may be largely a website to hawk books and peripherally promote clinics, certification, conferences and links of interest. There is no syndication of news or articles, despite the fact that they do have some interesting contributors. The only interactive feature is Yahoo's discussion group format (timepeople) that TI:ME set up. ATMI seems to be a site to promote the association. This is perfectly legitimate, since it is not attempting to deliver content of music education technology. The article section (Squeak and Blat) is an archive for past technology since the last entry is circa 1999.

But there is another sensibility on the horizon, one in which participants are makers of meaning and knowledge through interactive creation of materials. This may be frightening to the keepers of official knowledge, since the content of learning is in the hands of students rather than programmers, publishers, and music industry sales reps. Music education technology still seems captured by the dogma of older technological stances of Educational Technology 1.0 & Web 1.0.