In our second in a series of posts about results from our Collegiate Music Facility Information Project, Byron Harrison of TALASKE discusses the use of technology in music school classrooms. The observations and comments noted are based on responses from 78 schools.

The infamous music history quiz Drop the needle, where students play Name that Tune on excerpts of classical music LP’s, no longer has a literal name. Digital music technology has replaced the record player and is revolutionizing the classroom.

The use of technology in the music classroom was perhaps the most surprising of the results from the Collegiate Music Facility Information Project.

My personal experience in conservatory education, while it seems to me very recent, was nearly nine years ago. Certainly, many things must have changed in that period of time. And since then, at TALASKE I’ve witnessed the latest technology being integrated into classrooms of all types and at all grade levels—not just in business schools or in technology-heavy disciplines.

So I’m surprised to be surprised, and I am delighted that music schools are keeping pace with other academic disciplines in their use of technology in the classroom.

Our survey included two general questions that involved technology, one relating to overall satisfaction, the other to intent for technology upgrades. Overall, 40% of respondents indicated that building technology was, in their opinion, deficient in their music facility. Of these, 32% indicated that upgrading building technology was one of their priorities. Admittedly, this does not seem overwhelmingly positive. But, keep reading.

This general satisfaction with technology wasn’t strongly correlated with the size of the school’s enrollment—other than that the smallest quartile of schools were generally the most dissatisfied with their classroom technology. On the other hand, the facility’s age correlated: The older the facility, the more likely upgrading technology was a priority.

Our survey went on to look at four specific aspects of technology in the music classroom: the availability of audio and video playback systems, digital music player connections such as an iPod dock, access to the internet, access to a wifi network.

Forty-four percent of respondents indicate that audio and video playback systems were available in every, or nearly every, classroom. Sixteen percent indicated that audio and video playback systems were mostly portable systems.

Here’s where it gets interesting:

Eighty-five percent of respondents indicated that instructors could readily plug in an mp3 player.

Ninety-four percent indicated that internet content was available to instructors from the classroom.

Eighty-one percent indicated that their facilities had wifi available throughout.

Each of these results seems encouragingly high. To get a benchmark on these numbers, we found some survey results from The Campus Computing Project which reports that wifi networks are available in about 77% of 4-year academic institution. Music schools, by our count, seem to do slightly better.

Why, then, don’t these results correlate with overall satisfaction with building technology? “So, you’ve got an iPod dock, the internet, and wifi. What else could you want?” The answer can only be that these basic systems are not meeting the specific needs of the music school.

We’re interested in what will make technology really work for music education facilities. We’re eager to hear your feedback, and we look forward to probing this issue further in the 2010 version of our survey.

To learn more about the Collegiate Music Facility Information Project and to receive a copy of the 2010 survey, join our email update list here.