The Multimedia Technologies Applications indd

The Internet Application in Music Education
Dagmar Janečková
In the last decade of the twentieth century we were witnessed the great deve-
lopment of communication possibilities offered by computer systems connected to 
different networks. The Internet is a system of interconnected computer networks 
(mesh networks), allowing rapid exchange of data and information retrieval (K
ÖPPLO
-
VÁ
- J
IRÁK
2003: 195-199).
Internet is the world’s most widely used information and communication tech-
nologies, whose radical rise dates since the year 2000 and the number of users is 
still growing. Being part of the intangible space turned into an exclusive-normali-
ty-unconditional axis very quickly, during one decade. Today we fi nd ourselves at 
a stage where we realize and feel the negatives associated with either unilateral or 
excessive use of technology. This happens mainly on the European area, where the 
euphoria of new multimedia morphed into the prudent use, with the knowledge of the 
emerging adverse social impacts.
The above user involvement is commonplace today. There is also the presence 
of multimedia in education-learning process, mainly due to the Internet for Schools 
project, which was a rapid response to progress phenomenon. The project was laun-
ched in 2001 under the State Information Policy in Education. 3620 schools being 
involved expected the establishment of an Internet network and broad possibilities of 
using computer technology. The guarantor of the project was the Ministry of Educa-
tion, Youth and Sports and the general contractors were AutoCont On Line, Inc. and 
Czech Telecom, Inc. All expenses were paid directly from the budget of the Ministry 
of Education, that provided a free service for the schools. Objectives of the project 
were scheduled into two phases:
‘To the end of 2001 to equip every elementary and middle school at least with 
one high-quality multimedia computer, accessible to pupils and teachers even outside 
their own educational process, and at least this computer to connect to the Internet.’ 
(V
LČKOVÁ
2006: 20)
‘To the end of 2003 to equip every secondary school and each major primary 
school at least with one classroom with a minimum of eight multimedia compu-
ters involved in the local network, and preferably continuously connected to the 
Internet.’(Ibid.)
End of the project was fi xed at three years after the equipment was put into the 
schools. For practical reasons the project was eventually closed later, namely at 
31 8
th
2005, when the hardware had been transferred to the school property for the 
symbolic price of one Czech crown.

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50
D
AGMAR
J
ANEČKOVÁ
Multimedia classrooms with a suffi cient number of personal computers are no-
wadays standard on every elementary and middle school. Special classroom, where 
the music education is teaching- a musical room- is set up in two-thirds of prima-
ry schools only (C
RHA
- J
URČÍKOVÁ
- P
RUDÍKOVÁ
2010: 51). The same research also 
shows, that not always is the musical room used for teaching. Specifi c, 70 percent 
of teachers stated, that they uses this special classroom. From the questions about 
specifi c hardware in the musical rooms was found, that one third of respondents has 
a computer at disposal in them, one fi fth has a projection device and one sixth an 
interactive whiteboard at disposal. Research has shown above-average Internet using 
by teachers- 70 percent of them use it to prepare for the lesson, specifi c they are sear-
ching for information and records. One of the fi ndings of the survey was particular 
age diversity inside the Internet using teachers group. Against secular guess about 
using the Internet mainly by the younger generation of teachers, the pre-retirement 
age teachers use it signifi cantly also, even a little less (Ibid.).
The most commonly used multimedia equipment in the school music education is 
a combination of computers (connected to the Internet) with the speaker. With such 
connection can be provided the immediate download of the audiostuff from the Web 
and its frontal mediation. Important precondition is suffi cient speed of the network 
connection. The advantage is a wide range of recordings, either individual songs or 
sounds of instruments etc. Teacher does not need carry audio media into lessons with 
him, however, from the point of teacher we cannot talk about easier lesson prepara-
tion. Teacher needs to fi nd examples, listen to them in their entire length and write 
down or save the location of the website. For these purposes, the most widely used 
website is YouTube.com – a portal where the general public upload their video fi les. 
This user’s openness and thematic liberality entail considerable diffi culties.
The most common defi ciency is the poor quality of the fi les. There are examples 
of artifi cial music, performed by different artists, made by amateur recording equip-
ment. Such a sound quality is unacceptable for educational needs. The low standard 
of interpretation can causes an even greater disappointment. For example, searching 
of Ryba’s Czech Christmas Mass results 72 fi les of various qualities and content. It 
is diffi cult to fi nd the best example in this sum. The searching of the best quality is 
getting longer, because a necessary point is to listen the example from start to fi nish, 
to minimize unpleasant surprises later, which sudden changes its content can cause.
Bad correspondence of fi le title with its content is rather marginal problem in 
YouTube website. This concerns mainly the art music compositions, which were by 
amateur musicians newly arranged and placed on the Web for amusement.
If the examples are presented from YouTube.com site through an interactive 
whiteboard, a sound and picture, the teacher should make clear to himself whether 
is relevant auditory or visual perception. From the psychological point of view is 
known, the visual perception often massively outweigh auditory perception, so the 
example of this or that song stays in the mind of a pupil only as a background music 

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to the images that he had watched. And it is certainly not the objective of listening to 
music in music education. Likewise, pupil concentration can be negatively interfered 
with different visualizations that appeared when you play track in some music player 
software. In these cases, it is necessary to explain the pupils that art music is mainly 
focused on listening, although the combination of music with visualization can be 
interesting and can open new dimensions of the music perception.
Constructive and interesting technology in music education is a combination of 
computers connected to Internet and data-projector. ‘Projector is a projection tech-