The application of digital tools in listening to music in music culture education

Abstract

Listening to music is a dominant activity in the Music Culture teaching in which students develop critical thinking about aesthetic value of music. Teachers mostly use CDs and DVDs as important tools during the music listening activity despite the development of technology. On today’s classes we meet digitally literate students born in a completely digitalized world, which represents a great challenge for teachers. The students and the system expect a wide range of digital contents – audio tracks, videos, animations, photos, etc. Fortunately, teachers can choose digital tools which will be used for improvement of the teaching activity – music listening. Research has been conducted within this paper and its aim is to determine the way in which the teachers implement the music listening activity, as well as the influence of the use of digital tools that help the students with learning and motivation. 675 students from four general education schools from fifth to eighth grade and their teachers of Music Culture from Osijek-Baranya County, as well as Vukovar-Srijem County took part in this research. The research is experimental and it is divided into two phases – before and after the use of digital tools. The research results show that the digital tool Kahoot! helps students to learn the matter easily and that they are much more motivated during music listening. Also, both students and teachers have developed digital competences.