Findings and initial conclusions
Windows Mobile OS limitations
The first round of testing on Windows Mobile OS was conducted on a Nokia 909 running Windows Mobile 8.1. While Microsoft’s desktop Windows OS remains dominant (about 90%), in the mobile sector Windows Mobile is one of the least used, at only about 2% (Linshi, 2015) in comparison to Apple’s iOS (40%) and Google’s Android OS (51%). Windows Mobile 8.1 proved so badly supported in testing that it skewed results, suggesting there were no apps for musical creativity that would work across the full range of possible BYOD. In the second round of tests, a developer preview of Windows 10 Mobile was used on the same phone. It was much more successful, and is included in the summary data in Table 2, but it was still less successful than other OSes: it is therefore not discussed in the overall findings, and educators and administrators will need to offer extra help for students using these devices.
Coding for categorisation and features
As discussed, parameters for measurement were established before and during the data collection period, initially by identifying key features of software and hardware combinations, and then through a process of iterative analysis including the identification of options, alternative features, and formal comparison of generated models under different browser (and hardware) environments on a pairwise-basis. The authors settled on two levels of software categorisation which are shown in Table 1. In addition, since most music curricula are based on established nomenclature – “elements” or “concepts” (Rose & Countryman, 2013) – and reduced to “learning experiences”, we similarly categorised software to curricular content.
| Main category | Sub-categories | Curricular coding |
|---|---|---|
| Making | Sequencer/Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) | Composition/improvisation |
| Step Sequencer | ||
| Notation | ||
| Virtual Instrument | ||
| Content | History | Musicology, theory, aural |
| Listening skills (elements/concepts, learning to describe music) | ||
| (Non-historical) Information (e.g. instruments) | ||
| Theory | ||
| Tutorial | ||
| Drilling | Aural skills | Musicology, theory, aural, performance |
| Sight reading | ||
| Theory | ||
| Performance | Sheet music | Performance |
| Guitar chords/tablature | ||
| Accompaniment | ||
| Practice (more than just sight reading drilling) | ||
| Tuition | ||
| Learning Management System (LMS) | (None) |
The resulting data can be sorted according to a number of criteria: software that runs on all tested OSes (and is therefore ideal for BYOD), by category and/or subcategory, or by curricular content. Table 2 shows abbreviated results for all software that passed a cut-off point (since too much data were collected to include in this paper) as being able to run on both desktop operating systems and at least one of the major mobile OSes, sorted in overall suitability. Note that results for Mac OS and Windows full OS for desktop and tablet are not included because all titles included here passed those tests.
N.B. Table 2 is not included on this page, because it is a summary of the much more rich (and up-to-date) data found on this whole website.
Key findings: apps for creativity
Data coded in the creativity subcategory revealed a number of titles (Flat, Noteflight, Quicktab, Drumbit and Soundtrap) that supported all devices and OSes, although support for external MIDI input was not present in any of the browser-based tablet and phone apps (owing to current limitations of browser APIs). Of the creative apps that allow children to compose, Soundtrap, an in-browser sequencer with in-built synthesisers and audio support stood out as offering the best feature set and compatibility, including support for external MIDI devices on desktop OSes. Drumbit was unique as the only step sequencer that supported all OSes, and both Flat and Noteflight’s cross-browser support was thorough, with all features apart from MIDI input working on all browsers (though some less reliably than others).
FL Studio and its sister app Groove Monster Machine, step sequencers, provided the best native app compatibility in this subcategory, but the feature set parity across platforms was very varied, something the company has acknowledged on its website and is working on. Caustic provided the next best cross-platform support in the same sub-category, for a fraction of the price. O-Generator, a circular step sequencer specifically designed for music education featured a range of both native and browser apps and may therefore be a good fit for many schools.
Content apps
Apps in this category are the easiest to make work cross-OS, since generally they offer simple media and a little interactivity, rather than full app-like behaviour. The free www.musictheory.net webapps support all OSes, and provide a wide range of information as well as some drilling activities. The corresponding native apps for iOS are paid, but not necessary if students have reliable internet access. A range of content apps under umbrella company Music First provide contrasting content, from shallow western art music-based informational apps such as Music Delta to the more sophisticated Mort Subotnik’s Music Academy (which also includes some drilling features).
Drilling apps
Musical skills are often learned through repetition, and software applications can relieve the teacher from the duty of drilling skills such as interval recognition, rhythmic dictation, and even sight reading exercises. In addition, by assessing the progress of each student, drilling apps can provide better differentiation across a classroom than can a teacher who is presenting such activities to an entire class at one time.
Auralia and Musition are the most established titles in this category, and have now produced native apps for iOS. They have by far the greatest feature set, but this was not a criterion for assessing BYOD in this design: MusicTheory.net, mentioned above, covered all platforms. Limited to a single feature, but covering it deeply, Sight Reading Factory can generate unlimited sight reading exercises at any particular level for any instrument, and also worked on all platforms.
Apps for Performance
A wide range of apps that assist in musical performance were found, from the Salsa Beat Machine that generates salsa backing tracks for dancing or improvising over, to Chordify and Chromatik which generate guitar chord leadsheets and sheet music respectively on all OSes. Yousician, Synthesia and Practice First were not quite as robust in platform support, but offered many more features, including tuition and the ability to assess student performance and provide instant feedback.
Conclusions
This paper does not seek to draw conclusions about pedagogies that should be adopted for music education in BYOD schools, and nor does it seek to recommend certain software solutions over others. It has identified an area of practice in Music Education that requires response, a gap in the knowledge, and has performed the only content analysis on a wide range of software that may be considered as solutions for BYOD at the time of writing.
It provides a range of software for practitioners to consider, and a starting point for detailed research in this area which should be ongoing, since software development has become more agile and new solutions appear regularly. To this end, the authors intend to repeat testing regularly, and to begin to explore the pedagogical and social implications for musical learning in schools with BYOD programs.