Multimodality: an illuminating approach to unravelling the complexities of composing with ICT?

Abstract

Having previously been employed to investigate science and English classrooms and listening in the music classroom, theories of multimodality would appear to have much to contribute to an examination of group composing using Information and Communications Technology (ICT), owing to the multimodal nature of music software and group discourse. This article reports on a PhD study in which a multimodal perspective was used as a prism with which to investigate pupil composing with computers in the classroom. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, which included video, a specially developed computer-based tool was used to categorise and thematically link the data. A key finding was that the multimodal theoretical perspective enabled various diverse aspects of the music classroom to be revealed and investigated in detail, some of which have hitherto remained largely unexplored. These included the use of classroom space, group collaboration and appraisal of pupils’ composing processes and enabled an in-depth consideration of effective learning designs to be made.

Keywords:

• multimodal
• ICT
• music classroom
• composing
• group collaboration
• digital video analysis tool

Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number R42200154076].

Notes

1. The term ‘computer’ is used here to refer to the computer music workstation, where a computer system with sequencing software is linked via MIDI to a music keyboard.

2. MIDI is an acronym for ‘Musical Instrument Digital Interface’, a communications protocol that enables the linking of musical instruments and sequencers.

3. Software that allows users to enter music on a music keyboard, edit it on the computer screen and play it back. The software used in these studies was Cubasis (http://www.steinberg.net).

4. See: http://www.andras.net/wg.html

5. See: http://www.atlasti.com/index.html

6. See: http://www.qsrinternational.com/

7. See: http://www.studiocodegroup.com/

8. See: http://www.w3schools.com/dhtml/default.asp

9. See: http://www.php.net/

10. See: http://www.mysql.com/

11. See: http://httpd.apache.org/

12. See http://www.apple.com/quicktime/what-is/

13. Beats per minute.