Online Collaboration in Supporting Music Teaching and Learning
Drawing from Jordan’s (2008) notion of deterritorialization, this chapter explores ways in which music teachers collaborate and exchange ideas in digitally mediated spaces. One such way is through Facebook. With over 1.1 billion unique monthly visitors, Facebook has changed the spaces for sharing music teachers’ pedagogical approaches and techniques, making it a potentially powerful tool for music teaching and learning. This chapter will examine the use of two private Facebook groups: Music Teachers (32,000+ members) and Little Kids Rock Teachers (1600+ members). Utilizing guidelines of content analysis outlined by Bauer and Moehle (2008), we examined over 800 written posts from these Facebook groups to better understand the ways teachers use Facebook to build community, share resources, and collaborate. We surveyed participants who are the most active posters on these two social media sites to develop an understanding of how these tools function as a vehicle for music teaching and learning. Building off Salavuo’s (2008) notion of social networks as a medium for sharing and providing information for music learning, this chapter examines the content of teachers’ engagement. An examination of emergent themes found in the content of Facebook posts reveals insights into the sorts of collaborations music teachers have in social media.