Thoughts on using technology in piano teaching (Sept 2007)

Besides a piano teacher and performer, I must admit that I am also an intensely curious "gadget freak". Whenever I see any opportunities of implementing current technology into pedagogy, I will attempt to do so, with the hope of enhancing teacher-student communication, as well as facilitating learning and retention.

In order to assist my students in retaining contents covered in our lessons, I video-record lesson summaries at the end of our sessions with a digital camcorder (each lesson summary typically lasts 5 minutes). Students are encouraged to bring along their own memory devices, for example a USB memory stick (minimally 1 Gig in capacity) onto which our lesson summaries are transferred for home review. I personally find this approach to be very effective in facilitating retention. Since the video summaries are relatively short, students can review them on their computers as often as they need. This approach is preferred over using traditional video-taping devices (such as DVD or VHS cassettes) because multiple files can be transferred in real-time (in other words, no time is wasted in serial dubbing).

Another benefit of this approach is that, as a teacher, I can systematically store and retrieve records of each lesson from my computer database. These video summaries not only serve as a useful reminder of contents covered during the lesson for the learner, but they also provide a tangible gauge for progress within the semester for both teacher and student.

As a teacher, I attempt to make myself accessible to my students beyond lesson times. Students are encouraged to contact me between lessons and discuss problems they run into during practice. However, as all musicians know, to effectively describe an intricately complex activity as musical performance technique over the telephone is definitely not an easy task. Words alone are evidently inadequate in capturing the essence of the quality of physical movements, nuanced tonal qualities and the intricate sense of co-ordination involved in playing.

To overcome this barrier, I prepare short videos in response to my students' technical questions and post these videos on the internet (e.g. on Yahoo video or youtube.com) for them to view and download. In so doing, students can have quick access to effective practice strategies in a multimedia format - without which, they will have to wait until their next lesson for any meaningful clarification. This approach effectively reduces time lag between lessons which can significantly hamper a student's progress due to obstacles encountered in practice.

Similarly, students have to option of communicating with me between lessons through uploading their practice sessions onto the internet (e.g. on Yahoo video or youtube.com). I have several students currently preparing for their ARCT piano performance pedagogy certificate, who choose to send me videos of their teaching on a regular basis for feedback. Mature learners seem to find this approach particularly helpful. Also, this approach obliges learners to become gradually acquainted with performing in front of a camera - which may help them overcome performance inhibition and anxiety in the presence of an audience or jury.

Lastly, to maintain close communication between myself and my students, and to keep students informed of the most current musical events in town, I have set up a musical blog.

Students are informed of constant updates of the blog by e-mail. Meanwhile, students are also encouraged to freely express their musical thoughts in my blog forum. This facilitates communication between students within the musical community of my piano studio.

I have attempted to implement a

technological approach in my teaching in the last few years, and am still refining the process along the way. So far, however, I find that integrating technology into piano pedagogy can effectively enhance learning by reducing down-time between lessons, and also facilitate better communication between teacher and learner. If you are interested in further discussing details on how to set up your studio electronically to enhance teaching and learning, you are welcome to contact me at (514) 886-9641 or e-mail me at angelachan@videotron.ca.

Copyrighted  Angela Chan (September 2007)