Introduction
What is BYOD?
Today, digital technology is pervasive in many cultures. Mobile devices (qualified as smartphones, modern tablets such as the iPad, laptop computers, and hybrid touch-laptop devices such as the Microsoft Surface) are accessible to a great number of school aged students (Raco, 2014). Bring Your Own Device programs, or BYOD as they are known, refer to a technologically-integrated learning model in which students bring their personally owned mobile device into the classroom, and the school supports connection to a number of other services such as internet access, printing and accessing networked data (Disterer & Kleiner, 2013).
Along with new technology-informed pedagogical ideas such as “flipped” and “blended” learning (Slomanson, 2014), BYOD programs have moved from being cutting edge practice just five years ago to entering the common lexicon (Holmes, 2006), not just in educational practice but in the lives of students and their families (Parsons, 2014). High street electronics retailers now market specifically to families of students attending “BYOD schools”.
Unfortunately, not only do practicing teachers feel challenged to keep up with current technology in music (Freedman, 2013; Nielsen, 2013); even pre-service music educators share this apprehension (Alyahya & Gall, 2012). In this paper we seek to identify the challenges for teachers desiring to meaningfully use student devices for music learning, and provide a complete content analysis of a wide range of music software on a wide range of devices and operating systems.
Literature review
Advocacy for mobile learning and BYOD
It has been argued that BYOD is an intervention that is designed to facilitate student-centred learning, parental involvement, and participation as well as inclusivity (Argueta, Huff, Tingen, & Corn, 2011; Stavert, 2013). This model of student centred learning is personalised because one-to-one learning (one student to one device) occurs (Mo & Swinnen, 2013; Stavert, 2013).
Current research concludes a “paucity of work” (Milman, Carlson-Bancroft, & Boogart, 2012) on the subject of the use of new mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) and mobile learning in education internationally. Further to this, research on the efficacy of mobile learning in Music Education is even more scant, and the work done in this field provides very little data.
The existing research on the use of new mobile devices in education (not specifically music education) is overwhelmingly positive on the successful engagement of students, achievement of students, change in teaching strategies and enhanced collaboration between students (Bebell & O’Dwyer, 2010). It makes grand claims, from the improvement of reading skills in students with ADHD (McClanahan, Williams, Kennedy, & Tate, 2012), to increased mathematics assessment scores in primary school students (Kiger, Herro, & Prunty, 2012; McKenna, 2012), higher demand for iPads over other tablets and eReaders (Zijian & Wallace, 2012), increased motivation to learn independently (Kinash, Brand, & Mathew, 2012) and improvements in the teaching experience (Shepherd & Reeves, 2011).
On a surface level, BYOD may appear to be antithetical to inclusivity because it assumes that all students own, or have access to a mobile device. Such an assumption may be thought problematic, especially when dealing with students and schools in located lower socioeconomic status (SES) populations (Adams, 2012). Surprisingly, research has revealed that usage, accessibility and ownership of mobile devices is not contingent on SES (Stavert, 2013). In other scholarship, it has been acknowledged that students who do not own a mobile device have greater access to school owned technology (Madden, Lenhart, Duggan, Cortesi, & Gasser, 2013). BYOD programs have been shown to further benefit students because they give students the opportunity to take ownership of their learning outside the classroom (Parsons, 2014), leading to richer learning experiences and increased motivation.
The issues around BYOD in education
Despite these positive findings, much of the existing literature is not peer-reviewed or refereed in any form, but instead in the form of third-party or vested-interest reports (Bansavich, 2011; Fuse, 2010; Heinrich, 2012; Jennings, Anderson, Dorset, & Mitchell, 2011; Johnson, Adams, & Cummins, 2012; Riconscente, 2011). In addition, the assumption that any new technology justifies great investment (currently exemplified in many schools’ uptake of new technologies) has been challenged (Cuban, 2001), with some data pointing to less effective outcomes than teaching and learning without the technology (Culen & Gasparini, 2012; Gardner & Davis, 2013; Kinash, Brand, Mathew, & Kordyban, 2011). While the literature points to a need for further, carefully conducted research, these technologies have permeated our children’s lives, and teachers are required to integrate them, even if they are not sure what risks may be prevalent (Jones, Chin, & Aiken, 2014).
Digital technologies are varied and by no means homogenous. In a typical BYOD classroom, the devices that students own are varied both in hardware and software. Not only may the hardware form vary, but so may the Operating System (hereafter referred to as OS) each device runs (for example Apple OSX or iOS, Google Chrome or Android, or Microsoft’s many versions of Windows), which in turn affects the compatibility of the applications that can run on such devices (Nykvist, 2012). Apps which are written to run on a particular OS are called “native apps” (Taivalsaari & Mikkonen, 2011).
Native versus the browser
Ethan Hein, a developer of generative music applications, acknowledged the issue with limited accessibility and sought to mitigate the issue of incompatibility by making his applications accessible for web-based browsers (Hein, 2013). In a similar vein, the phrase “Bring a Browser” was coined by Stephen Heppell (2012) to signify that the most important software to enable mobile learning is an internet browser. In the latest browsers, app developers can write to device APIs, meaning that apps can use features of the device such as the built-in camera, microphone, GPS location or even connected external devices (Rodríguez, Vera, Vallés, & Martínez, 2014).
Developing software for the browser rather than natively for each device is an approach that exists to mitigate issues with application compatibility on mobile devices (Bauer, 2014). Browser-based applications increase accessibility and are by nature convenient since they do not need software updates (Stavert, 2013). However, in a world where the internet is not yet ubiquitous, even in some of its richest countries, a reliance on always-on internet connections means that native applications still have one key advantage – working offline. Google is attempting to bridge this gap with standalone Chrome browser-based apps that can work offline, even caching data locally until able to sync it with the cloud when a connection returns (De Ryck, Desmet, Piessens, & Johns, 2014).
Implications for music education
There is research more broadly on the use of technology and e-learning in music education (Brown, 2007, 2012; Hewitt, 2009; Humberstone & Taylor, 2015). It is possible, then, to synthesise the literature in an attempt to identify the technological and pedagogical challenges that teachers may face, and to audit the range of software available at this time to solve these challenges in BYOD educational environments. Teachers need to understand not just the technology, but the musical cultures that surround it (Burnard, 2012; Green, 2008; Humberstone, 2015).
Integrating technologies is considered essential in music curricular internationally (Cox & Stevens, 2010). However, there is no scholarship that investigates the compatibility of native and browser-based applications for the music BYOD classroom, which is the gap in the literature that this study fills. While music may not be a core subject of STEM-saturated international curricula, it actually requires advanced technologies in comparison with most other subjects because making music with a computer requires the connection and support of extra hardware devices (such as MIDI keyboards and microphones) (Brown, 2015).