Digital tools - easy to learn, hard to master : A qualitative study of music teachers' view of digital tools

This essay is an analysis of a qualitative study made on six music teachers’ view of digital tools in music education. The purpose of the essay is, through discourse analysis, to make visible what discourses are upheld in relation to digital tools by six teachers teaching music in year 7 - 9 in Swedish schools. The findings show that the teachers mainly talk about digital tools as a way to record and create music and as a means to assess the pupils’ work. The findings also show that there is not a clear cut definition of what the term ”digital tools” refer to in music education and that there is a reluctance among the music teachers to define digital tools as an instrument. Furthermore, learning and teaching digital tools is seen as time consuming and as something that might take focus from more traditional parts of music education.