Validation activities
The end of November till mid December 2004 was a validation period for the project. Students from 3 music schools in Sweden have been using IMUTUS at home and in the classrooms for 3 weeks. These schools were Nacka musikskola, Solna kulturskola, and Stockholms kulturskola, all residing in Stockholm. Moreover, 8 students at the Ghiberti Junior High School and others in Music School of Fiesole have been using IMUTUS for practising in groups at schools in 3 sessions and a teacher group has evaluated separate components. Finally, 3 students and 2 teachers have been involved in the fine-tuning and adjustment of a set of functional parameters of the IMUTUS practising environment.
The IMUTUS Consortium would like to warmly thank all the involved students, teachers and schools for their invaluable help. Working with them and testing IMUTUS in action has been an enjoyable, fruitful and rewarding experience!
Validation methodology and Results
The IMUTUS project has addressed many research topics in the development of an interactive music tuition multimedia system for training students of traditional instruments with no MIDI support. Computer engineering has been devoted for the integration of various key technologies resulting in the final version of the IMUTUS prototype. However, the validation efforts have been directed to assess the benefits of IMUTUS as a tool for tuition, questions that can not be taken for granted despite careful computer engineering. The topics for validation refer to the following.
a) Educational needs: The content, the aim, the students?’ perspective on the tuition system and the teachers?’ knowledge and experience.
b) Computer experience: The estimate of knowledge to handle the computer as a tool.
c) Affect and attitude: The students?’ and the teachers?’ impressions of IMUTUS examined after each week of the validation period.
d) Musical improvement: The efficiency of the system in teaching students to play the recorder.
e) Usability: The mixture of Relevance, Efficiency, Attitude and Learnability of IMUTUS.
The results of the validation activities are presented in Newsletter 4.
Student impressions
The students?’ own comments on the IMUTUS software were as follows:
?“I think that the instructions sometimes are bad. But they are good because you can improve your performance.?”
?“This is good because I have learned a lot more.?”
?“It has been fun. I have had to think a little on my own without a teacher breathing down my neck, I get a little nervous from that. There has not either been any particular inflection to the comments so I can interpret them by myself a little. (12 year old student)
Teacher impressions
The teachers?’ own comments on IMUTUS software were as follows:
?“The stars (grading) are amusing, but the feedback is bad sometimes.?”
?“IMUTUS is explicit and easy to follow.?”
?“The fingering animation is not so appropriate.?”
?“The concentration on few items is good for younger students but it is a limitation for the teenager. As a teacher you can always adapt your feedback to the case at hand.?”