On the use of a multimedia platform for music education with handicapped children: A case study

Computers & Education 87 (2015) 254e276

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Computers & Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu

On the use of a multimedia platform for music education with handicapped children: A case study Maria-Dolores Cano*, Ramon Sanchez-Iborra Department of Information Technologies and Communications, Universidad Polit
ecnica de Cartagena, Campus Muralla del Mar, Edif Antigones, 30202 Cartagena, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 11 November 2014 Received in revised form 14 July 2015 Accepted 17 July 2015 Available online 23 July 2015

The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for students with special learning needs is being particularly studied by the research community. Likewise, music has gained recognition through the years in the field of learning disabilities, playing lately a key role in providing a better quality of life to people with special needs. However, there is still a gap on the combination of ICT and music teaching tools. In this work, we present the results of a case study where students with disabilities took a 3-month introductory music course using the multimedia tool called PLAIME (PLAtform for the Integration of handicapped children in Music Education) developed by the same authors. The aims of this work are three-fold: i) to explore the capability of disabled students to acquire musical knowledge using PLAIME, ii) to measure the improvement in their ICT skills, and iii) to observe their behavior along the study. At the end of the program, students showed an advance in their music knowledge and a positive improvement in behavioral development, being able to perfectly manage the computer platform. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Computer uses in education Computer-assisted instruction Media in education Interactive learning environments Music learning tool Handicapped children Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities

1. Introduction There is a worldwide trend to promote the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at all education levels. Several benefits appear when ICT is included in learning environments: ICT functions as a facilitator of active learning and higher-order thinking (Alexander, 1999), ICT serves as a tool for curriculum differentiation, providing opportunities for adapting the learning content and tasks to the needs and capabilities of each individual pupil (Smeets, 2005; Smeets & Mooij, 2001), ICT promotes the acquisition of learning skills and social relations through cooperation and interaction in the classroom environment (Susman, 1998), and ICT has a positive impact on pupils' logical and strategic reasoning skills (Bottino, Ferlino, Ott, & Tavella, 2007; Mitchell & Savill-Smith, 2004). A very complete survey on education technology can be found in the work by Joseph (2012). On the one hand, the use of ICT for students with special learning needs is being particularly studied. Many scholars agree   that ICT facilitates the development of educational systems at all levels (Stan ci
c, Femec, & Ca cko, 2012; Vida cek-Hains, Kirini
c, & Kovaci
c, 2010). Mich, Pianta, and Mana (2013) developed an application that could help deaf children improve their reading comprehension skills. Their system presented interactive stories, comprehensive exercises, and an intelligent dynamic feedback. After testing the application with deaf children, they found that their proposal turned out to be more effective for

* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M.-D. Cano), [email protected] (R. Sanchez-Iborra). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.07.010 0360-1315/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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the reading comprehension of these children. Li-Tsanga, Leea, Yeunga, Siua, and Lam (2007) studied the resilience of ICT knowledge in people with intellectual disabilities, showing that after six months participants maintained the basic ICT skills that they acquired during training. Among the benefits of the ICT training program, authors emphasized the enhancement of their daily functions and literacy, extension of social networks, improvement of independency and quality of life, and facilitation in empowerment. As another example, Lucas da Silva, Gonçalves, Guerreiro, and Silva (2012) developed a multimedia platform for children with autism spectrum disorders with the aim of motivating them to use ICT, which could produce positive outcomes in an educational context. Their results show that the children felt compelled toward the use of the tool, and that the number of interactions between peers increased. Another interesting work was done by Lathouwers, de Moor, and Didden (2009), where they identified the similarities and differences between physically disabled and nondisabled adolescents regarding the access to and use of the Internet. They concluded that there was not much difference between the two groups in terms of access, use, or the most common activities being done online. On the other hand, the use of ICT to support musical performance is very diverse in concerns, creating an interesting music learning approach that generally enables pupils to be involved in music-based activities like composing, performing, or listening in the classrooms with greater confidence, a deeper level of understanding, and appreciation (Chan, Jones, Scanlon, & Joiner, 2006; Leijen, 2009). The work by Panagiotakou and Pange (2010) demonstrates that the use of ICT in music successfully contributes to preschoolers' musical learning, music creativity, and cognitive development. Participating children were more focused and interested in the music activities because of the stimulus of alternative technological equipment for music activities, which combined with an alternative way to control the mouse pointer, can be considered as an educational tool that attracts preschoolers' interest and keep them concentrated for a longer period of time. Similarly, several works have shown that the use of interactive reflexive musical systems fosters music creativity and music skills in children (Addessi, 2013, 2014). In addition, music has gained recognition through the years (playing lately a key role) in the field of learning disabilities, providing a better quality of life to this group (Savarimuthu & Bunnell, 2002). An appealing result was found by Brook and Galili (2000), where pupils from a high school were questioned about their attitudes toward chronically disabled individuals who have special health-care needs. According to this study, most of the pupils think that music (playing and listening) and computers are occupational interests that help to increase disabled students' self-image, and to improve their feelings of acceptance. Similarly, Nikolaidou, Iliadou, Kaprinis, Hadjileontiadis, and Kaprinis (2008) recommended embedding ICT in primary music education in order to support a customization to the accessibility and usability needs of both pupils with and without disabilities. In this work, we present the results of a case study where students with disabilities took a 3-month introductory music course using the multimedia tool called PLAIME (PLAtform for the Integration of handicapped children in Music Education). The aims of this work are i) to explore the capability of students with disabilities to acquire musical knowledge using PLAIME, ii) to measure the improvement in their ICT skills, and iii) to observe their behavior (interpersonal relationships, mood, teamwork, etc.) along the course. PLAIME was developed by the same authors of this work, through collaboration between music teachers and university researchers in the telecommunications field. It provides basic music knowledge following an example of Spanish music curriculum for primary education, which usually uses the recorder (flute) as music instrument. Our study reveals that this type of music learning approach creates a common ground for music learning, promotes social inclusion, and traces links between ICT and music teaching.

2. Related work Nowadays, the market offers a wide variety of software tools for music learning that can be classified into the following categories (Pellone, 1992): tutorials, drill and practice, game, simulation, or problem solving. Examples of the first type can be easily found, and they are usually a collection of text, figures, and (only sometimes!) sound (teoría, 2015). Drill and practice, which involves the learner doing specific tasks over and over again until the task(s) become second nature to her, is still the most common category together with simulation (eMusicTheory, 2015). With the growth of video games and consoles the game category is gaining importance (Music Games, 2015). Last, the problem-solving category includes some interesting applications but is less widespread (Music Theory Online, 2015). However, despite this variety of tools, the use of ICT in music teaching and its evaluation from a research perspective has not been fully covered yet. Networked DrumSteps, eJay, Teach me Piano Deluxe, Music Paint Machine, i-Maestro, or Lenmus are examples of music software tools that have been recently evaluated by researchers. Networked DrumSteps was presented and evaluated by McCarthy, Bligh, Jennings, and Tangney (2005). This is a free tool for meaningful, collaborative interaction in a constructionist music-composition environment. It allows multiple users in different locations to collaborate in the process of music composition, but without the use of standard notation. Students that were tested confirmed that music composition in groups was much more fun and different than working alone, hence proving the advantages of collaborative software for music learning. Another example also evaluated by researchers is eJay (2015). At first, this commercial software was not considered as a tool for music teaching. However, Gall and Breeze (2008) carried out an analysis of the impact of eJay in the development of composition skills in children aged 10e11. This music software provides the user with a variety of short musical samples that students can organize to create their own piece of music. After their study, authors argued that the use of eJay in the classroom led to a collaborative work among students that increased their music creativity. Similarly, the commercial software Teach me Piano Deluxe (TPD) was analyzed by Chan et al. (2006).

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TPD teaches basic practical keyboard skills in music, focusing on rhythm, staff notation, and fingering. After being studied, authors concluded that TPD had clear effects on high school students, enhancing their rhythm, note-reading, and pitch. Music Paint Machine (Nijs, Coussement, Muller, Lesaffre, & Leman, 2010) is an interactive music system that introduces movement and experimentation in musical instrument teaching by allowing music performers to make a painting by simultaneously moving the body and playing music. The evaluation of this tool was done with musicians (Nijs et al., 2012), and the authors focused on the relationship between flow experience and presence. Results showed that Music Paint Machine has a didactic relevance for learning to improvise and to stimulate creativity, and that there is a significantly strong correlation between flow and presence while engaging with an interactive music system. Besides, Music Paint Machine was integrated in instrumental music instruction by means of a nine-month study in which 12 children learnt to play the clarinet (Nijs & Lemman, 2014). In this program, half of the students employed Music Paint Machine as a supporting tool, while the others received the instruction without the use of the interactive system. Although the number of participants was limited, authors could strengthen the usefulness of employing new technologies in instrumental music education. One possible limitation of this tool in comparison with Plaime is the complexity of using it at home, which could difficult (i) students to practice out of the class and (ii) parents to be more involved in the learning process. i-Maestro (i-Maestro, 2015; Ng & Nesi, 2008) project was intended to develop interactive multimedia environments for technology-enhanced music education. The main technical objectives of the project included: (i) basic research and development on new solutions and enabling technologies to support traditional pedagogical paradigms for music training, (ii) novel pedagogical paradigms, such as cooperative-working, self-learning and class-studying, with particular focus on Symbolic Training paradigms and Practice Training paradigms for string instruments exploring interactive, gesture-based, and creative tools, and (iii) a framework for technology-enhanced music educational models and tools to support the creation of flexible and customized e-learning courses to improve accessibility to the musical knowledge. See for instance some works developed under this project by Crombie, Johnstone, and McKenzie (2007) or Ong, Mitolo, and Nesi (2008). Compared with our proposal, i-Maestro was a more ambitious project tackling much deeper music knowledge, excellent for arts schools, but maybe less indicated as a supportive application for a primary school curriculum. As a minor observation, it was thought for string instruments, whereas in this proposal we work with a wind instrument due to its popularity in Spanish primary education. From a different perspective, Lenmus platform (De La Fuente, 2010; Lenmus, 2015) is a free open-source program to practice music reading skills, to improve aural recognition abilities, and to acquire theoretical music knowledge. It also includes a score editor. Above all, it focuses on recognition of intervals, chords, scales, and tonality. It is based on the use of music books written in XML that teachers have to create using the DocBook XML format. In our opinion, Lenmus is not children-oriented, and would be recommended for music knowledge much deeper than the requirements of a primary education music curriculum. Moreover, the use of XML syntax is not straightforward, requiring an extra effort from the teachers' point of view.
n Finally, PLAIME was introduced in the work done by Cano, Martínez-Rojo, Sanchez-Iborra, Cabrera-Lozoya, and Cerda (2012). The aim was to create an additional tool for primary school music teachers, so that PLAIME can help students with special education needs to learn basic musical concepts or to play the recorder, without the need of abandon the daily classroom, and hence stimulating the social inclusion of disabled children. Table 1 summarizes PLAIME's features compared to these mentioned tools from the related literature. The comparison has been completed based on the corresponding published works mentioned previously. Observe that, up to the knowledge of the authors, none of these works makes any reference to pupils with disabilities. At first, all tools from Table 1 could be used by children of any age and physical or psychological condition. Nevertheless, observe that the acquired or needed music knowledge to get full advantage of the applications is variable and, in some cases, let us say too high. Thus, based on the current Spanish curricula for primary education and on discussions with primary school music teachers, this leads us to believe that some of them would not be

Table 1 Comparing PLAIME with other available music learning tools (L ≡ Low; M ≡ Medium; H ≡ High). iNetworked Maestro DrumSteps

eJay

TPD

Lenmus Music Paint Machine

PLAIME

Target audience

All ages

All ages

All ages

String L Yes Yes

Drums L No No

All ages Piano H Yes Yes

All ages All ages

Considered instruments Teachers' music knowledge-level needed to use the software Theoretical lessons are included in the software Practice and exercises or activities are included in the software Games are included in the software Composition tools are included in the software The software tool creates a collaborative environment Level of software contents' flexibility Teacher's required ICT knowledge to use the software The software has a children-oriented graphical interface Adaptability of the software to primary schools' curriculum

All ages Several M No No

Several L Yes Yes

Several M Yes Yes

Recorder L Yes Yes

No Yes Yes H L No H

No Yes Yes L L Yes M

No Yes Yes L L Yes M

No Yes No L L Yes M

No No No M M No H

Yes Yes Yes M H Yes L

Yes No Yes H L Yes H

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recommended as supporting tools for a primary education music curriculum. That is, they are beneficial for music learning, as it has been confirmed, but were not designed as a daily tool adaptable to individual school curricula. In addition, only PLAIME and Music Paint Machine incorporate games, with the corresponding benefits on pupils' logical and strategic reasoning skills. Likewise, only PLAIME, Music Paint Machine, Network DrumSteps, i-Maestro, and eJay support a collaborative environment. As demonstrated in previous works from the related literature, collaboration environments promote the acquisition of learning skills and encourage social relations among students, which is of notable importance when we talk about children with disabilities. Furthermore, in our opinion, one of the strategic features to be examined is the flexibility of the platform. To be able to add or modify the contents according to teacher's criterion is a key factor because it provides both differentiation and freedom. At the same time, it also allows parents to become an active part of the learning process, since they can also prepare activities for their children. Hence, we can conclude that some of these applications are not competitors of PLAIME, and those that could be present less advantages. 3. PLAIME A detailed overview of PLAIME is provided in this section. We describe the goals of the platform, its structure, and the design of lectures, activities, and games. 3.1. Design approach Designed for children, PLAIME includes basic concepts about the recorder and assists in acquiring competences such as basic scores and notes identification. Following guidelines from the teachers and from the primary education Spanish curriculum, PLAIME provides a gradual acquisition of music knowledge. From our point of view, gradualism is an essential detail, since PLAIME is planned to be the first contact that children will have with musical instruments from a playing perspective. Bearing this in mind, the specific challenges of the platform can be described as follows. This tool has to be useful in order to help in the understanding of music in primary education. Although this proposition may seem obvious, it is important to follow music teacher recommendations to achieve a real useful tool, and to avoid teachers' negative beliefs about the benefits of ICT on primary education (Hermans, Tondeur, Van Braak, & Valcke, 2008). In this way, teachers recommended us to incorporate theoretical content about the recorder. Although PLAIME is not intended to be a teacher replacement, the fact of providing pupils the option to review theoretical lessons is interesting. Contents include: recorder history, recorder structure, basic techniques regarding tongue and finger position and breathing, practicing how to play the recorder, and reading and writing scores. In addition, the platform has to be interactive and versatile through the combination of theory, exercises, and games. Different from many other platforms, activities and games in PLAIME address student differentiation issues. Particularly, games and exercises increase the usefulness of our platform since it can be used not only in the classroom but also in extracurricular activities or at home. Observe that practice is an important task even at the elementary level where we are focusing on. A detailed description of exercises and games is presented in the next section. The graphical interface of the platform has to be simple, attractive, and intuitive for teachers, parents, and children, carefully taking into account design requirements for handicapped children and including disabilities that could inhibit handling the recorder (e.g., malformation in hands). To achieve this goal, PLAIME is designed to be used with a tactile screen, so that even children who cannot use the mouse due to a strong limitation in hands or arms functioning could use the platform. For instance, previous works (Gregor, Sloan, & Newell, 2005; Sanger & Henderson, 2007) have verified the relationship among button size and number of buttons in a touch screen and the effectiveness of the assistive communication device interface. We follow these recommendations, using the minimum number of buttons in the touch screen and defining the size of the buttons bigger than the size of the buttons of a common keyboard. Observe that a normal screen could be also employed, employing a regular mouse as control device. Finally, the platform has to be portable, thus Java was the selected programming language. Java is a modern high level object oriented language. One of its main characteristics is platform independence, which allows the program to be run in any software or hardware platform (e.g., Windows or Linux). We have followed the Factory and Singleton programming patterns, which allow an easier error recovery and memory saving, particularly interesting when using a graphical interface. In addition, the system has been designed to take advantage of polymorphism to reduce processing load. 3.2. Program structure The structure of the platform is simple. It consists of four sequential screens: a launch screen, a user selection screen, a character screen, and a main menu screen. The launch screen (see Fig. 1) is a welcome window that includes an animated poster with general information. Touching any part of the screen makes the program proceed to the user selection screen. The application's graphic engine employs two lock gates that open and close every time the screen changes to avoid a static or monotonous feeling. Next, the user selection screen (see Fig. 2) identifies the student, since there are functionalities like games or activities that require user information. It is possible to create, to edit or to delete users. The user has also the choice of selecting an avatar, a personage that will guide, interact, and accompany the user throughout the program (see Fig. 3). The avatar is active only for the explanations (lectures), not participating in games or in activities. This is the best approach to not

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Fig. 1. Initial screens: launch screen and lock gates.

Fig. 2. User selection and new user-account creation screens.

distracting learners' attention, i.e., to not interfere negatively on the learning process, but at the same time fostering learning (Atkinson, 2002). The characters/avatars included in PLAIME are simple, 2D, as preferred by children (Girard & Johnson, 2010). Currently, four avatars have been implemented: two of them have a male appearance, and the other two have a female look. All avatars are non-static, reacting to finger (cursor) movements; for instance, moving their eyes, changing their faces' expressions, or explaining the functionality of a particular button. Likewise, in the event of no action, the avatar draws the learner's attention by both talking and moving around the screen. Finally, the program shows the main menu from where the user accesses all educational content structured in three categories: lectures, activities, and games. 3.2.1. Lectures Lectures have been developed following an example of Spanish music curriculum for primary education designed to cover the contents and aims enumerated in (BORM, 2007). Accordingly, PLAIME comprises seven theoretical lessons. The structure of a lesson includes an explanation (whose content can be read by the avatar), examples, and practice. The first lesson is a simple introduction to the recorder, its history, and structure. The next lesson explains the proper body position to play the

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Fig. 3. PLAIME avatars.

recorder. The third lesson shows how to arrange hands and fingers in the recorder, and indicates the functionality of each finger. Next, the fourth lesson describes tonguing, i.e., how to produce the sound properly and what is the most frequent mistake to be avoided. The last three lessons focus on notes with the left hand, notes with the right hand, and finally, sharps and flats. As shown in Fig. 4, it is up to the learner's preferences to see a recorder showing the fingering of the note or a recorder representing the holes to be closed. With the example button, the learner hears the sound of the note. To practice, the pupil will select any of the games included in PLAIME, which in this case are configured to employ only the note the learner is working with, starting from the lowest difficulty level.

Fig. 4. Example of PLAIME lectures and practices screens.

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In a traditional classroom environment, the teacher explains the lecture contents and then pupils play (physically) the recorder. However, handicapped students need different methodologies to follow the lecture pace. On the one hand, students with physical disabilities are able to follow the theoretical part of the lecture but, depending on each individual, could experience difficulties playing the recorder. On the other hand, intellectual handicapped students may have troubles maintaining their level of attention or understanding the teacher explanation, therefore different ways of presenting information are needed. It is important to note, as aforementioned, that this tool is not intended to replace the teacher but to serve as a complementary learning mechanism, integrating e-learning with traditional learning and focusing on helping handicapped pupils to follow the pace of the rest of their classmates. The visual manner in which PLAIME presents lectures attracts pupils' interest and their attention is more easily caught; as stated by Panagiotakou and Pange (2010), computer-based music activities combined with ICT keep young students concentrated for a longer period of time, improving their motivation, compared with traditional lectures. From the disabled pupil's perspective, the practice section of each lecture provided in PLAIME allows her to perform virtually with the advantage of staying in the classroom with the other students. Being with their peers has social benefits for children with disabilities (Lamorey & Bricker, 1993; Peters, 2003). Moreover, children with peer interaction skills are more likely to be accepted by their peers, and therefore are less likely to experience the negative effects of social rejection (Bronson, Hauser-Cram, & Warfield, 1997). Additionally, the process of reading and playing music stimulates important areas of the brain (McKinnon, 2005), which is an interesting fact for this type of students. Therefore, the lectures included in PLAIME are designed to be used at both environments, the school, as a pedagogic and integrating tool, and at home, as an entertainment and practicing platform. 3.2.2. Activities With PLAIME, students can load activities created by their teacher or even by their parents using a built-in activities manager. Students can complete these activities at the school or at home, benefiting from parental participation in their education. An activity can include as many exercises as necessary, and exercises belong to eight different types that are summarized in Table 2. Either the keyboard or the tactile screen can be used to answer all exercises. Tests and questions are the traditional exercises to evaluate theoretical knowledge. The work with notes is divided into six different exercises that increase in complexity, from the simplest “score to note” to the toughest “score to recorder”. Fig. 5 shows different examples of the exercises. Solved exercises can be saved in the computer, printed, or sent by email to the teacher (through the activities manager built-in program itself). Handing in the answers in any of the available methods (e.g., email) is a good way to get personal feedback from the teacher and to obtain an explanation on why the exercise is right or wrong. Observe that feedback is often the weakest link in educational software, being usually implemented as a simple indication of whether an answer is right or wrong (Sim, MacFarlane, & Read, 2006). Thus, this is one of the points where traditional learning and innovative ICT tools complement each other. The activities manager is an additional built-in program that comes with PLAIME. It allows the teacher or the parents to create a new activity or to open an existing activity for edition. Three actions can be performed for each activity. The first one is filling in information about the activity (see Fig. 6), such as the title of the activity, a brief description, a recipient email address (in order to send the solved exercise by email, this is usually the teacher's email address), and a sender email address. Observe that the sender field includes an email address and a password, so the program can send the email to its destination. Although the password is encrypted and saved in an XML file, it is highly recommended not to use a personal email address for this field, but an email address specifically created with this aim. Indeed, notice that pupils will not be identified by their email addresses but by the user data filled in the platform when they started PLAIME. Therefore, the best option would be the teacher to have two accounts: one to receive homework, and another to function as the sender email. The second action to be performed with an activity is inserting, editing, or deleting exercises from the activity. Once the exercise has been created, it has to be configured. For instance, if it is a test, then it is necessary to indicate the statement and the answers. Regarding exercises with notes (e.g., score to note, note to recorder, etc.), they share a common configuration framework with only two fields. The first one is used to introduce the question statement, and the second one to set the sequence of notes to work with (see Fig. 6). The difference lays on how the notes are shown to the student, i.e., the format that the platform is going to employ. For instance, if we introduce the notes CeDeE, then if it is a “score to note” exercise, the platform represents CeDeE in the score and the student has to identify the symbols with the corresponding notes; or if it is a “note to score” exercise, the

Table 2 Description of the exercises that can be inserted into an activity. Type of exercise

The learner has to

Test Question Score to note Note to score Recorder to note Note to recorder Score to recorder Recorder to score

Choose an answer among several options Answer the question with either the computer keyboard or the tactile keyboard Read a score and find out the notes being represented Place the notes into the score Identify which sounds (notes) would produce specific fingerings on the recorder Select what holes should be closed/opened to produce specific sounds (notes) on the recorder Read notes in the score and indicate what holes are to be closed for the sounds to be reproduced Write the notes in the score after observing the recorder shown in the screen

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Fig. 5. Examples of exercises that can be included in an activity.

student sees the notes CeDeE and has to represent them in the score, and so on. Finally, the last action to be done with an activity is preview and printing. The number of pages to be shown, zooming out, zooming in, and restoring are the functions incorporated.

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Fig. 6. Activities content manager.

3.2.3. Games There are several reasons to include games in a learning tool as PLAIME. On the one hand, games can be effective teaching and learning tools (Jenkins, Klopfer, Squire, & Tan, 2003; Mitchell & Savill-Smith, 2004), and the incorporation of multimedia stimuli and games is a motivational factor for children, enticing them to use the software (Sim et al., 2006). On the other hand, by using these games, pupils (handicapped or not) can play with their peers in the classroom (or at home) favoring the creation of an inclusive environment, which will have a positive effect on their social and educational behavior (Bronson et al., 1997). PLAIME contains six games, each one designed to develop a specific music skill, such as writing and reading scores or performing a score with the recorder (see Fig. 7). In addition, it is possible to play with two players in the same local area network using Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technology. All games provide feedback on the learner's performance, allowing her to progress at her own pace. When a game is selected from the game menu, it appears a brief description about it, and before the game starts, the game instructions are displayed as depicted in Fig. 7. Next, the learner should choose to play alone or to play with another user. One player selection will address the user to the game configuration screen (shown also in Fig. 7), where she indicates the notes she wants to play with and the level of difficulty (five levels, from very low to very high). The ‘two players’ selection will go to another menu to indicate if the user wants to start a game or to search for “active games”. The expression “active games” means that there are users who started a game for two players, but they are still waiting for an opponent. If the user selects to start a game for two players, the implemented algorithm is in charge of publicizing the new active game in the local area network. The game waits until another student wants to join the game. Otherwise, if the user selects to join an already active game, the P2P algorithm included in PLAIME searches for active games and shows them in a list with their characteristics, e.g., level of difficulty, as displayed in Fig. 7. Consequently, the learner can select the active game that is more adequate for her and join it. Fig. 7 also shows one of the games being played by one player. Fig. 8 describes with an example the operation of the P2P algorithm used for games with two players. In this example, two players compete to know who is quicker in recognizing several notes given a recorder with specific closed holes. In the screen, each player sees several rows. For each row, the player has to identify the note shown in the recorder and throw the ball towards the correct note. The rows move down at a slow pace. When the player hits the correct note, the row disappears. If the rows of a player move down so much that they reach the lower limit, then this player loses the game (because she did not hit any correct note, i.e., she did not recognized any note from the recorder).

4. Method A PLAIME training-program (case study) was designed in order to observe the evolution of the handicapped students' music-theory acquisition process and check their ability in the use of ICT in general, and PLAIME in particular. Other skills were also observed, such as interpersonal relationships or teamwork, among others. The program was carried out for a period of three months in a public school sited in the Autonomous Community of Murcia, Spain.

4.1. Participants The participants were 15 pupils with different intellectual disabilities, 2 teachers/researchers, and 2 additional school teachers specialized in working with handicapped children (these teachers only participated in specific sessions due to their agenda). Pupils' disabilities were very varied (see Table 3). Just one learner had prior basic music instruction (more details in Section 5). The rest of the children had their first contact with music classes in this program.

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Fig. 7. Examples of PLAIME games.

Pupils' ages ranged from 8 to 17 years old and were divided into two different groups, depending on their intellectual capacity instead of their age; thus, the same pace of learning could be maintained within each group given the limited number of support teachers that participated in the program and the broad range of disabilities and ages that the students presented (Bruggink, Meijer, Lin Goei, & Koo, 2014). Thereby, the eight pupils with more severe learning problems were assigned to the first group (G1), whereas the other seven pupils were assigned to the second group (G2). Please observe that this assignment was not intended for comparison purposes, but to ensure a proper progress in the program.

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Fig. 8. Local events and packet exchange for a P2P game with two players.

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4.2. Materials The study was carried out in the school ICT classroom. The material used by pupils in each session consisted of: one computer for each student with PLAIME installed and ready to use, a pair of speakers in each workstation allowing pupils to hear musical notes and melodies included in PLAIME, and a mouse to control the application. Note that no keyboard is needed for using PLAIME; the entire application can be controlled by mouse or a touch-screen. Each pupil controlled autonomously his/her own computer; only two students needed to work in pairs because of the difficulty for one of them to deal with the computer (student ID 1.4 in Table 3).

4.3. Procedure The study was conducted in 10 weekly sessions. Each session lasted 1 h. The teaching methodology used in the sessions was very structured, as recommended for disabled students (Bennett, Reichow, & Wolery, 2011). Table 4 summarizes the contents taught in each session. It is important to note that both groups worked with the same learning content. However, during the first sessions, the teachers were able to identify some differences between both groups (G1 and G2), and thus they adapted the content to each group's learning progress in subsequent sessions. Each session was divided into three parts. In the first part, all theoretical contents studied so far were reviewed with oral games and exercises, e.g., the teacher asked the students for the positions of the notes into the staff, the ascending and descending scale, etc. One activity used to increase the motivation of the students was a role-playing game in which students took turns to assume the teacher role and to ask their classmates for the contents he/she could remember. This exercise was intended to improve both musical knowledge and social interaction among students (Udvari-Solner, 1992). After this review, students began with theoretical lectures. As aforementioned, PLAIME is not a teacher's substitute but a complement to help in the teaching task, thus one slideshow was prepared for each session including the theoretical contents for that lecture. Every slide had a brief theoretical explanation, accompanied with examples or melodies. Lectures had a gradual level of difficulty, adapting it to the pace of concepts acquisition. Although the teacher set the session pace, students had their own time to read each slide, being helped by the instructors to understand all new concepts. Finally, the third part of the session was dedicated to use PLAIME. During this part, the students first solved the exercises prepared by the teachers and, afterwards, they played Table 3 Students' gender, age, and disability. Group

Student ID

Age

Gender

Disability

G1

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7

15 17 8 16 10 12 15 11 17 17 15 19 17 14 18

F F M M M M M F M M F M M M F

Down syndrome Pervasive Developmental Disorder Hearing impairment Chronic encephalopathy Mild mental retardation Down syndrome Fragile-X syndrome Moderate mental retardation Specific language impairment Mild mental retardation Mild mental retardation Down syndrome Mild mental retardation Mild mental retardation Mild mental retardation

G2

Table 4 Weekly plan and session content. Session

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Students' attendance

Contents

Group 1

Group 2

Group 1

Group 2

7 6 7 7 6 7 7 7 6 6

8 6 8 7 7 6 5 6 6 6

Notes MI (E) & SOL (G) Notes FA (L) & LA (A) Review of previous sessions Review of previous sessions Notes DO (C) & RE (D) Notes SI (B) & High DO (C) Review of previous sessions Review of previous sessions Review of previous sessions Review of previous sessions

Notes MI (E) & SOL (G) Notes FA (L) & LA (A) Review of previous sessions Notes DO (C) & RE (D) Notes SI (B) & High DO ([C]) Review of previous sessions Recorder: SI (B), LA (A) & SOL (G) Recorder: FA (F), MI (E) & RE (D) Recorder: DO (C) Review of previous sessions

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PLAIME games. PLAIME was always used under the teachers' supervision, aiming at selecting the proper difficulty level for each student and tracking the final achieved scores. 4.4. Data collection In this study both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. Qualitative data consisted of the teachers' observations during each session. As a matter of example, these observations included: the students capability to solve the proposed exercises, the most difficult tasks from students' perspective, the simplest tasks from students' perspective, or what avatar they preferred. Teachers also observed signs of enjoyment and engagement (e.g., comments, smiles, laughter, etc.) and gestures of lack of enjoyment and frustration (e.g., looking around the room, etc.) since these behavioral indicators could be more trustworthy than children's responses to direct questions about their preferences (Hanna, Risden, & Alexander, 1997; Sim et al., 2006). These data were collected by means of annotations in the classroom diary that the researchers employed during the whole program. Quantitative data consisted of: 1. PLAIME scores to evaluate knowledge acquisition/content understanding 2. Behavioral observations to look at the impact of PLAIME on perceptual, cognitive, and social skills PLAIME scores represent students' scores in the proposed exercises and students' scores in games (including also their level of difficulty). To evaluate behavioral observations quantitatively, the teachers used a questionnaire to grade each student's behavioral parameter in a 5-point Likert-scale ranging from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high) at the end of each session. The selected behavioral parameters were: attention paid to the application, easiness to handle the application, intuition in managing the application, individual reasoning, memory, mood, communication with classmates and teachers, interpersonal relationship with classmates, and teamwork. Two parameters deserve a special note, intuition and mood. Although intuition has been studied for software development for many years (Beynon, Boyatt, & Chan, 2008; Naur, 1985), it can be a confusing term. In this work, we used the term intuition meaning that the program is guessable and behaves as expected (Constantine & Lockwood, 1999). For instance, if the child is in the avatar selection screen and sees the arrows, she “guesses” that by clicking on an arrow the screen will show the next (or the previous) possible avatar. Regarding mood, we would like to note that we measured it by observing positive mood signals such as smiling or laughing, children’ verbal expressions of happiness, their weekly level of excitement or energy, their interest in the content being taught, etc. Table 5 includes a definition of all behavioral parameters used in this study, which have been also used in related research works (Boot, Kramer, Simons, Fabiani, & Gratton, 2008; Campigotto, McEwen, & Demmans Epp, 2013; Dobrowolski, Hanusz,
ndez-Lo
pez, Rodríguez-Fo
rtiz, Rodríguez-Almendros, & Martínez-Segura, 2013; Sobczyk, Skorko, & Wiatrow, 2015; Ferna Helms & Sawtelle, 2007; Karal, Kokoç, & Ayyildiz, 2010; Martinovic, Burgess, Pomerleau, & Marin, 2015; Nouchi et al., 2013). Perceptual and cognitive observations, i.e., attention, memory, reasoning, easiness to handle the program, and intuition were included because engagement with music plays a major role in developing perceptual processing systems that facilitate the encoding and identification of speech sounds and patterns (Azizinezhad, Hashemi, & Darvishi, 2013), thus being used in other works from the related literature as mentioned above. Similarly, social skills such as communication with peers and teachers and teamwork are of high interest in the evaluation of software tools (Bernardini, Porayska-Pomsta, & Smith,
lez-Gonza
lez, ToledoDelgado, CollazosOrdo
n ~ ez, & Gonza
lez-Sa
nchez, 2014; Murphy, Faulkner, & Reynolds, 2014). 2014; Gonza Poor results in any of these behavioral parameters may have negative consequences on social factors and may affect academic

Table 5 Behavioral parameters measured by teachers at each session. Parameter

Type of skill

Definition

Easiness to handle the program Intuition

The student is able to load, start, run, and use the program easily (preferably in an independent way)

Attention

Perceptual/ cognitive Perceptual/ cognitive Cognitive

Reasoning

Cognitive

Memory Mood

Cognitive Cognitive

Communication

Social

Interpersonal relationship Teamwork

Social

The student is able to generate and maintain a state of activation to provide adequate information processing The student is able to apply learned principles to different contexts or deriving new principles for general or novel situations The student is able to learn and recall The student shows a positive mood (smiling or laughing, verbal expressions of happiness, high level of excitement or energy, etc.) The students participates in the learning process through verbal communication with the teachers or with other students The student feels comfortable with other teachers and students in the classroom

Social

The student interacts with other students to success in a task (e.g., solve exercises, use the software, etc.)

The student is able to guess the operation of the program

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performance, resulting in low self-esteem. As a result, by combining perceptual, cognitive, and social skills in our study, we encompass the most recent approaches in learning outcomes from games and software tools in the classroom (Connolly, Boyle, MacArthur, Hainey, & Boyle, 2012; Garris, Ahlers, & Driskell, 2002; Wouters, van der Spek, & van Oostendorp, 2009). An analysis of behavioral quantitative observations showed a strong internal consistency (reliability) of the collected data, represented by Cronbach's Alpha coefficients greater than 0.80 for all parameters (please, see Table 6). 4.5. Data analysis Quantitative data was analyzed as follows. Regarding PLAIME scores, we assessed each student's average scored obtained in each session. By doing so, we are able to identify their individual progress in knowledge acquisition. As regards behavioral observations, i.e., perceptual, cognitive, and social skills, we computed the average grades for each skill obtained for each session, together with their corresponding confidence intervals. In addition, we applied statistical linear regression analysis to estimate the effect of the program upon the corresponding skill. For all skills but one (teamwork), we used simple linear regression. As it will be shown in the results sections, there is a positive trend in all perceptual, cognitive, and social skills along the program. The validity of these statistical inferences from regression analysis are based on the assumptions that linearity holds and that errors in the regression model follow a normal distribution, have the same variance, and are mutually independent. These assumptions were verified by scanning the residuals. 5. Results In this section we present the results obtained from the study described above. First, we show the results from a qualitative perspective, giving a description of the most important events happened during each session. Then, we analyze the students' evolution from a quantitative point of view, including their knowledge acquisition and behavioral development during the program. 5.1. Qualitative analysis In the following, we describe the 10 sessions of the case study from a global perspective. Tables 7 and 8 include individual qualitative observations captured during the program. 5.1.1. Session 1 This session was used as an introduction for the program in order to evaluate the pupils' behavior in the new environment, i.e., a music class using ICT. This session was the hardest for the students in terms of using the computer program (PLAIME). First of all, they had to introduce their personal data, i.e., name, grade, school, etc. in order to create their own profile. Then, each student chose her favorite avatar and began with the session exercises. Some of the students needed some help during this process due to their language difficulties, such as dyslexia or reading/writing level of comprehension, so teachers helped them to enter their data. In this first session, students should learn where to place MI (E) and SOL (G) notes. In G1, three students were able to memorize the notes and their position into the staff, whereas the remaining pupils were unable to successfully complete the exercises. Students from G2 obtained better results, with five students succeeding in the proposed exercises. The other three needed some help to solve the activities, and obtained low punctuation in the final score. Due to the long explanation given to the student with the details of the experience, there was not much time for using PLAIME games in this session. Only seven pupils (three from G1, four from G2) had time to play one game, after finishing their exercises. All of them played game number 1 individually and with a level of difficulty set as easy. After a short comment about the game rules, all these pupils understood the game operation perfectly. From the children's behavior (e.g., laughing, helping each-other, etc.), we could detect that they enjoyed the game, and even some of them stayed to finish the game, although the session had already finished. At the end of the session, all pupils were enthusiastic and expectant for the next session. Table 6 Cronbach's Alpha coefficients for all quantitative behavioral observations collected along the program. Behavioral parameter observed

Cronbach's Alpha >

Attention Ease of use Intuition Reasoning Memory Mood Communication Interpersonal relationship Teamwork

0.83 0.82 0.85 0.82 0.80 0.90 0.90 0.90 0.80

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Table 7 Individual qualitative analysis for students in G1. Student Age Gender Disability ID

Observations in qualitative analysis

1.1

15

F

Down syndrome

1.2

17

F

Pervasive Developmental Disorder

1.3

8

M

Hearing impairment

1.4

16

M

Chronic encephalopathy

1.5

10

M

Mild mental retardation

1.6

12

M

Down syndrome

1.7

15

M

Fragile-X syndrome

1.8

11

F

Moderate mental retardation

Same avatar (Chuli) in all sessions. In session #4 she asks to work with another student (1.7). 1.7 takes the leadership to choose the avatar in session #4 and #5. From session #6 to #8 she works with her usual teacher showing a great improvement in performance. In session #9 she works again with student 1.7, her performance decreases. At the end of the program she is able to say the ascending scale and to solve some PLAIME exercises/games. She works with student 1.4 the first three sessions. He tried to lead but had strong difficulties (see comments below for student 1.4). Same avatar (Chuli) in all sessions. Session #2, she is not able to do tests but knows how to place the notes in the staff. She assimilates and memorizes the contents very well. Starts working alone in session #4. Her attitude is very positive, she is able to activate games and exercises by herself, stands out among other students. In session #6 she sings the notes correctly. Great performance, in session #8 we are thinking about changing her to G2. At the end of the program she has shown a perfect knowledge acquisition. He uses all avatars except Chuli. Always happy and enthusiastic with the experience. Despite his hearing impairment he understands all concepts and stands out among other students from G1. In session #5 he sings the notes. Perfect knowledge acquisition, he succeeds in exercises and games with the highest scores in this group. He works with student 1.2 the first three sessions. He does not know how to read. He is keen with PLAIME but has strong comprehension difficulties. He is not able to remember the notes. He leaves the experience in session #4. It uses all avatars except Chuli. In session #2, he gets ahead of the teacher and uses some of PLAIME features by intuition. He shows a perfect control of PLAIME but presents some problems in content acquisition mainly due to lack of concentration during most sessions. He uses all avatars but Flyer. Up to session #6 he has low performance. The teacher has to keep on at him so that he is able to follow exercises. In session #6 is able to use PLAIME games by himself. From session #7 we detect an improvement in memory, the student is able to say the ascending scale. He asks for autonomy to use the platform. He uses always the same avatar Friqui. He is always in a happy mood. He has strong difficulties to remember the content. From session #4 he works with student 1.1 (they asked for it) but he leads more than her. His performance improves working with his peer. He does the exercises/activities very quick so that he has time to play PLAIME games. From session #7 he is able to remember the ascending scale. At the end of the experience he is not able to succeed in solving exercises, but is very engaged with PLAIME games. She uses all avatars. She does not show interest in the platform (the computer, the program, the sounds, etc.) or in the class, with a very passive attitude. She does not retain information. In session #8 she starts to show more interest in PLAIME and to be more focused. In the last session, she surprises the teachers and says the ascending scale perfectly for the first time.

5.1.2. Session 2 During this session, students should learn FA (L) and LA (A) notes in addition to the contents studied in the previous session. The students' motivation continued in a good level, evidenced with behaviors such as pupils interacting with each other, students discussing about the contents of the lecture and also trying to help other classmates to manage the application. In this session, differences between the progress of knowledge acquisition began to be perceptible between the two groups. On the one hand, only two students in G1 succeeded in their exercises, the other four were able to answer just some specific oral questions. On the other hand, five students in G2 completed successfully their activities, and just one student needed some help, being able to answer only some easy, oral questions. After the theoretical lecture and after spending some time with PLAIME activities, pupils played game 2. As in the previous session, students did not have any troubles with games. Due to the dynamics of the game, the scores obtained were lower than those achieved in the activities. 5.1.3. Session 3 This was the last session before the two-week spring break, so it was dedicated to review all content studied so far. Students continued with a positive mood and a good work attitude, made explicit with signals such as launching the application without prior notice by the teachers, trying to answer the teacher questions, or asking about PLAIME games. The session structure was similar to the previous one, i.e., a brief explanation reviewing MI (E), FA (L), SOL (G), and LA (A) notes, some oral questions and games, and finally, exercises and other activities using PLAIME. In general, pupils in G2 demonstrated their good pace of learning, remembering notes and their positions into the staff. However, in G1 only two out of seven pupils were able to remember the notes positions and to obtain good scores in PLAIME exercises and games. Pupils were exuberant with the experience during the session, asking the teachers when the next class was going to happen and asking the teachers to ensure that the program would continue after the break. 5.1.4. Session 4 This session was taught after the aforementioned two-weeks-period for holidays. Surprising the researchers, pupils did not forget the studied notes or PLAIME features, coming back very motivated to learn new concepts (students asked to their

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Table 8 Individual qualitative analysis for students in G2. Student Age Gender Disability ID

Observations in qualitative analysis

2.1

17

M

Specific language impairment

2.2

17

M

Mild mental retardation

2.3

15

F

Mild mental retardation

2.4

19

M

Down syndrome

2.5

17

M

Mild mental retardation

2.6

14

M

Mild mental retardation

2.7

18

F

Mild mental retardation

Same avatar (Friqui) in all sessions. He is an attentive student. He shows some problems in reading but his learning pace is notable. He makes remarkable progress in all sessions. At the end of the experience he has acquired all the taught content. He uses all avatars but Chuli. At the beginning he answers the exercises with incoherent responses. From session #3 he starts to answer correctly to some oral questions, but shows low performance in PLAIME activities. Session #7 is a turning point for him, he starts to improve. At the end of the experience he is able to say the ascending scale and to locate some notes, but still has low performance with PLAIME activities/ games. She uses the same avatar in all sessions (Chuli). She has previous music knowledge (she knows what a staff is, the notes, notes location, and how to play the flute). She is a good worker and is very motivated. In the first session she shows better attitude than in other subjects. In session #2 she is able to use PLAIME by herself, she shows a perfect control of the program. Her level of autonomy is very high. Her learning pace is notable, progressing in each session and with a perfect knowledge acquisition. In session #5 she is particularly happy, interacting a lot with student 2.6. In session #6 her usual teachers comment that since the beginning of this experience she is happier and more motivated in the school (in other subjects). At the end of the experience, her knowledge acquisition and progress is perfect. He uses all avatars. He shows the lowest performance within the group. He understands exercises but is not able to answer properly, mainly due to memory difficulties. Nevertheless, he is motivated and participatory. In session #6 he is able for the first time to say the notes in the ascending scale. His performance in oral activities improves, but it still low in PLAIME activities. At the end of the experience, he is able to say the ascending scale, but not to solve PLAIME exercises/games. All avatars but Chuli. His knowledge acquisition is perfect. He retains all content taught at each session. He learns how to use PLAIME without any problem. In session #8 he uses the flute for the first time, but learns very quickly. Notable work. He uses avatars Friqui and Flayer. He is very motivated and happy during the first class. At the end of the first session he stays in the classroom to finish the PLAIME game. At each session, he is able to memorize and understand the content better and better. He creates his own trick to success in PLAIME games: to say the notes down-up counting spaces and lines. His oral performance is better than with PLAIME. In this sense, he improves in session #9. She has been absent most sessions (6 out of 10). However, she is able to progress and memorize some notes. She could have done much better attending to all sessions.

regular teachers during the week when the next “music class” would be). In G1, it was necessary to review the notes taught so far due to their members' learning difficulties. We noticed that the relationship between some students became stronger; two of them asked to work together and the experience was very positive. They worked together in exercises resolution and seemed very motivated, helping each other. The results from a qualitative point of view were similar to previous sessions, with only two students solving correctly the questions, whereas the rest of the class did not succeed in their activities. As mentioned previously, there was one student in G1 (1.4) who began the program working with another student as a couple, because he had troubles managing the computer. Besides his physical condition, the student presented severe mental restrictions, and his regular teachers decided that it would be better for the student to leave the experience in this session. In G2, we continued teaching new notes: DO (C) and RE (D). Most of the group maintained the learning pace, except two students that needed some help to solve the exercises. The other five participants obtained high marks. In both groups, some students started to manage PLAIME without any help at all. This behavior shows that the application resulted really intuitive for the pupils and that, after some training sessions, it can be managed stand alone. 5.1.5. Session 5 In this session, and after several sessions reviewing previous concepts, students from G1 learned two new notes: DO (C) and RE (D). A great improvement in oral questions was noticed, since five out of eight students could answer correctly to the questions formulated by the teacher. However, PLAIME exercises were still too complex for most students. We ascribe that difference on the results obtained in oral and written questions to the reading comprehension problems of some children. In turn, students in G2 learned the two remaining notes: SI (B) y High DO (C). We also noticed that the two students who had more difficulties in following the pace of the rest of the group improved their performance in oral questions, but still continued with a low performance in PLAIME activities. The rest of the group learned the new notes without any troubles and obtained good scores in PLAIME exercises and games. 5.1.6. Session 6 Students in G1 learned their two remaining notes: SI (B) y High DO (C). The majority of the students answered correctly to basic oral questions, e.g., ascending scale, having troubles with more complex questions, e.g., notes positions or descending scale, and with the application activities. In this session, most students were able to configure PLAIME themselves, showing a complete control of the application. Student 1.1 worked with her specialist daily teacher in this session (and the next two). She was helped to understand concepts explained during the session and the results were really successful. Student 1.1, who

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had severe problems in knowledge acquisition, was able to recite the full ascending scale and her scores in the application exercises improved a lot. In G2, we used this session as a review of all theoretical content studied so far, because next sessions would be used to practice with the recorder, i.e., students would use both PLAIME and the physical instrument. As in previous sessions, students obtained very good results in oral questions and only two of them showed some problems with PLAIME activities. In both groups, some students developed their own strategies to solve exercises, namely, count notes in the staff, count lines or blanks and associate them with the notes position, etc. At this point, pupils' regular teachers manifested that some of the children participating in this study seemed more confident, motivated, and integrated in other school subjects since the beginning of the program. 5.1.7. Session 7 Students in G1 worked with the complete list of notes. Although it was planned that the group began with recorder lessons, the teachers considered that the acquired knowledge so far was not enough, so this group continued with theoretical lessons. We tried to improve students' results in PLAIME activities, but the best marks, again, were obtained in oral questions with five out of seven students reciting the ascending scale. As an anecdote, one student began singing the notes with the correct intonation, from low DO (C) to High DO (C). Another student explained the researchers that she learned to sing the notes just hearing the sound of the notes in PLAIME. In turn, students from G2 did start recorder lessons. Just one of the students knew how to play the recorder. Pupils learned to play SI (B), LA (A), and SOL (G) notes watching the fingers position in the pictures from PLAIME and practicing in their physical instruments. All of them understood the recorder behavior and after the instruction, they were able to remember the notes and finger positions for the three notes studied in this session. Children seemed enthusiastic with the new experience and expressed their motivation to learn the next notes. 5.1.8. Session 8 G1 students continued reviewing the complete list of notes. A great improvement in oral questions was noticed. Six out of eight students recited correctly the ascending scale and two of them could also recite the descending scale. Attitude in this group continued being positive due to the dynamics of the lecture as a result of using PLAIME games and activities. Students in G2 learned to play FA (F), MI (E), and RE (D) notes with their recorders. Some students had difficulties to remember fingers positions, but finally most of them could play all notes. Even though the level of difficulty in PLAIME exercises was increased, six out of eight students succeeded in all proposed activities. Since the beginning of the program, researchers noticed a great improvement in music-knowledge acquisition for all students. Just one of them had previous musical knowledge and, up to this session, only one student in G1 were not able to recite the ascending music scale. 5.1.9. Session 9 G1 students continued working with the complete list of notes without using the recorder. Students showed a better performance in both, oral questions, in which all children except one were able to correctly answer easy questions, and PLAIME activities and games, where the obtained scores improved. G2 students completed the full list of notes, learning to play note DO (C). All students but two had a complete control over the recorder and were able to play every note asked by the teacher. For this reason, PLAIME exercises and games were set to the highest levels of difficulty. Despite of that, most students succeeded in all their PLAIME activities. Focusing in PLAIME management, the majority of the students in both groups knew how to load exercises, how to go to the games section, how to review theoretical lessons, etc., dealing perfectly with PLAIME. 5.1.10. Session 10 This was the last program session. Students in G1 made a complete review of all content and all students knew how to recite the ascending scale. After their work during all sessions, all students acquired some basic musical concepts, despite of not having any previous musical knowledge. Students in G2 continued playing their recorders. All students but two were able to play all notes and to solve successfully PLAIME activities and games set to high levels of difficulty. All pupils in this group finished the experience reciting the ascending and the descending scale, playing basic notes with their recorders, and solving the most complex exercises such as positioning notes on the staff or matching fingers positions with notes. 5.2. Quantitative analysis In this section, we present quantitative results in terms of both knowledge acquisition/content understanding and behavioral observations. Focusing on knowledge acquisition, and taking into account that just one of the students had prior musical instruction, students' scores obtained in tests and games were really satisfactory. Results show that students achieved a good level of music knowledge (see Figs. 9 and 10). For instance, four students reached the highest difficulty level in PLAIME games (1.2, 2.1, 2.3, and 2.6) and six students outperformed in the scores compared with other students (1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.3, 2.5, and 2.6). In addition, an analysis of the scores obtained reveals a positive trend along the program for all students but 1.5, 1.6, 1.8, and 2.7. More specific comments for these students are included in Table 7. Please note that we show PLAIME scores in two graphs (one for each group) just for visual clarity, without aiming to compare the groups; groups were not created for comparison purposes but to facilitate the program progress, as mentioned above. Regarding behavioral results, Fig. 11 shows the evolution of pupils' easiness to manage the application and all its contents and how intuitive the software appears to them. It is clear how students were (gradually) improving their control over the

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271

Fig. 9. Average students' scores in exercises during the experience.

application. Most of the students finished the study knowing all the app features and being able to self-configure games, accessing lectures, etc. Notice how, along the sessions, children's intuition about surfing the app menus and their attention to lectures and games were also “in-crescendo”. As this application is intended to be used by young students, those features were taken into account during the development stage, focusing on obtaining an intuitive and attracting design, with the aim of catching the pupils' attention and allowing them to achieve a gradual and intuitive understanding of the application. Therefore, we were able with PLAIME to lead disabled students to their individual thinking and inferring, which is highly
l, 2015). Please note that all measurements are represented recommended in the creation of ICT solutions for learning (Dosta with confidence intervals calculated at 95%. The linear regression analysis confirms this positive trend along the experience for both skills with R-squared values of 0.87 and 0.97, respectively. Fig. 12 depicts the children's level of attention, reasoning and memory capacity when solving exercises or playing games either orally or in the application, and mood. Notice how both reasoning and memory capacities grew during the sessions. The regression analysis shows clear positive effects of the use of PLAIME in the four observed parameters. We did not detect any student without a progression in their musical knowledge. As described above, in the last session, every student in the program was able to recite the ascending scale. In addition, 9 students in the whole program knew how to position all notes into the staff, and 5 out of 7 pupils in G2 could recognize notes in the staff, and play them with their recorders. Another key factor analyzed during the sessions was the social benefits of the application. Fig. 13 depicts the evolution of three different behavioral aspects, namely, communication, interpersonal relationships, and teamwork. Notice how the three aspects evaluated have a similar trend, obtaining their highest levels during the last sessions. As mentioned above, the regular teachers of some students informed us that the communication and interpersonal skills as well as the pupils' mood improved also in other school subjects, as was reflected during our music sessions. The relationship among students and between students and researchers was excellent, creating a collaborative environment in the last part of the program. At first, students showed a more individualist behavior, trying to overcome each other, but finally, they collaborated with their class-mates in the learning process, solving exercises and playing games together. This behavior is well represented by the trend shown in Fig. 13c, where a linear regression with a polynomial of degree three was employed to better fit the evolution of teamwork.

Fig. 10. Maximum level of difficulty reached by students in PLAIME games (1 ≡ Very low, 2 ≡ Low, 3 ≡ Moderate, 4 ≡ High, 5 ≡ Very high).

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5

4.5

4.5 4

4

R² = 0.9753

3.5

Punctuation

Punctuation

R² = 0.8701

3

3.5 3

2.5

2.5

2

2

1.5

Intuition

1.5

Ease of use

1

1 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

1

10

2

3

4

a)

5

6

7

8

9

10

Session

Session

Easeness to handle the program

b) Intuition

Fig. 11. Average grades in behavioral development parameters, their corresponding confidence intervals (95%), and linear regression analysis: ease of use and intuition.

5

5

4.5

4.5

4

4

R² = 0.8918

3.5

Punctuation

Punctuation

3.5 3

3 R² = 0.8611

2.5

2.5

2

2 Attention

1.5

Reasoning

1.5

1

1 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

1

2

3

4

5

Session

a)

6

7

Attention

9

10

b) Reasoning

5

5

4.5

4.5 4

4 R² = 0.883

R² = 0.7453 3.5

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Fig. 12. Average grades in behavioral development parameters, their corresponding confidence intervals (95%), and linear regression analysis: attention, reasoning, memory, and mood.

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5

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4 R² = 0.7376

R² = 0.8692 3.5

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Fig. 13. Average grades in behavioral development parameters, their corresponding confidence intervals (95%), and linear regression analysis: communication, interpersonal relationship, and teamwork (polynomial of degree three).

6. Discussion and conclusion In this work, we presented the results obtained in a case study in which 15 students with different disabilities were enrolled in a 3-month program focused on learning music-basics making use of PLAIME software tool. The results of this study suggest that using PLAIME can have a positive impact on children with disabilities' skills acquisition. That is, PLAIME is a highly flexible software platform that allows easy content customization and includes several games to be played by one or two players. It has been conceived and designed as a supportive music tool for teachers and parents pursuing better educational opportunities for children with disabilities. After the experience with PLAIME, students showed a high improvement in their music knowledge, an enhancement in their perceptual, cognitive, and social skills, and were able to perfectly manage the computer program by themselves. Regarding qualitative observations, we would like to note that children enjoyed using PLAIME as shown by their behavior during the program. They laughed, they helped each other, they wanted to stay in the classroom even that sessions had finished, they asked other teachers about when the music classes will continue, etc. The effect of the program extended to other regular subjects since children seemed more confident, motivated, and integrated, as their regular teachers communicated us. At the end of the program, all students acquired some basic musical concepts, despite of not having any previous musical knowledge. As for the avatar preferences, all students used always an avatar although the program has the option of not choosing anyone. Only 5 children selected always the same avatar; in this case, females always preferred one with female aspect (Chuli in Fig. 3) and males always preferred one with male aspect (Friqui in Fig. 3). In addition, the 3-month program has shown that despite the initial difficulties in using the software, all students were able to autonomously configure and manage it after the experiment. They knew how to load exercises, how to go to the games section, how to review theoretical
l (2015). lessons, etc., succeeding in their individual thinking and inferring using ICT tools as recommended by Dosta

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Qualitative observations are confirmed with the quantitative results. Students' scores obtained in all types of exercises and games were really satisfactory. An examination of the results shows a positive trend in scores for most students. Just 3 of them did not advance in this sense. We could not found a relationship between their respective disabilities (mild mental retardation, Down syndrome, and moderate mental retardation) and their low performance in scores compared with other children with the same disabilities participating in the study. Similarly, there were 6 students that outperformed in the scores, but further research would be needed to evaluate if there is a correlation between their age, gender, or type of disability and the scores obtained. Additionally, quantitative results reveal that children enhanced their cognitive, perceptual, and social skills by using PLAIME as shown in Figs. 11e13. Teachers graded students in terms of attention paid to the application, easiness to handle the application, intuition in managing the application, individual reasoning, memory, mood, communication with classmates and teachers, interpersonal relationship with classmates, and teamwork. An examination of the grades obtained by the students shows a clear improvement in all these skills. These results are consistent with prior experimental research on the use of ICT with children with disabilities (Bottino et al., 2007; Joseph, 2012; Li-Tsanga et al., 2007; Lucas da Silva et al., 2012; Mitchell & Savill-Smith, 2004). Our results complement their findings by showing that music and ICT can impact on the skill acquisition of children with disabilities. Finally, we explore advantages and limitations of PLAIME. With this software tool, we created a common ground for music learning that allows differentiation requirements, but at the same time, it is compatible with a traditional music curriculum approach Among the advantages of combining PLAIME with traditional music classes, we can point out that it could take advantage of common classes, since it is not necessary to create special groups or to have children with disabilities as simple observers (listeners). PLAIME has been designed to be used and useful for all students, thus the feeling of being different from the rest is less noticeable. At the same time, the platform addresses differentiation needs within the classroom in several ways. For instance, handicapped students can emulate the use of the recorder and teachers can prepare activities according to the students' learning pace, disregarding their physical or psychological condition. In the same way, parents could be more involved in the learning process at different levels, from just playing PLAIME games with their children to also creating new PLAIME activities. Observe that special needs of handicapped children within music classes are not covered by other known applications because they are not designed as supporting tools for the education curriculum. They usually cover several aspects of music knowledge as we argued in this work; however, they were designed neither to serve as a tool for social integration nor to teach the music basics set in the Spanish school's curricula. On the other hand, one of the main drawbacks to be taken into account with PLAIME, and which is common to most educational software tools, is the teachers' view on how ICT contributes to the learning environment. Traditional beliefs have a negative impact on the classroom use of computers (Nikolaidou et al., 2008); hence, the teacher should be the first person involved in addressing the problem in order to get successful results. In addition, other considerations of importance are: the teachers' skills in using ICT, the teachers' gender (Gregor et al., 2005), and the access to technology, not only the number of computers in the school but their location. In our opinion, to overcome these negative aspects some initial approaches could be adopted. For instance, teachers should be an active part in the development of ICT education tools, as it happened in this work; applications should be as simple as possible from the user's perspective; and finally, regarding the access to technology, some music classes could be taught in the computer rooms that most schools have. 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