About the Project

The operational framework

Distance learning Music Agoge (DMA) is a pilot project attempting to set the foundations for the exploitation of teleconference and live streaming capabilities used as tools for supporting music education as a performance praxis in Greek remote areas. It was funded by the e-services action of the Operational Program Information Society (O.P.I.S./ES 6875) and it operates under the auspices of Ellinogermaniki Agogi Private School, the Department of Research & Development and the School’s Music Department. DMA is the first project of it’s kind in Greece.

The objectives

• Satisfying it’s short-term objective the project already broadcasts online low and medium scale music events of specific interest especially from remote places without advanced ICT infrastracture (first successful event : May 2010 via mobile broadband).
   
•  Medium-term objective is to have remote communities collaborating towards the development of a live online music event. This objective seeks to help remote sites to exchange cultural content through music activities as a result of a training process that combines creative music-technology and music-teaching. Blending teleconference and live streaming tools towards this task is part of this current objective. Four such trilateral links (or even more multiple-site links) have already been accomplished:
  • the first in June 2010 (between Western Achaia, Boeotia, Crete)
  • the second in January 2011 (between Attica, Boeotia, Western Achaia).
  • the third in November 2012 (between Attica, Western Achaia, Stord-Norway)
  • the fouth in March 2013 was accomplished in collaboration with Stord Haugesund University-Norway and the "Write A Science Opera" project. Distance learning Music Agoge project achieves the fourth trilateral / second interstate effort / first cross-country-linkcast . The event linked Greece, Norway and Cyprus.
  • the fifth was a five-site linkcast accompilshed in April 2013 between Ahens and 4 Greek islands: Gavdos, Karpathos, Kastelorizo and Nicosia (Cyprus). The title of the linkcast was "Akriton Mousiki".
     
• Long-term objective is to develop and promote advanced and innovative videoconference capabilities used as tools that can link together remote communities in areas were access to music-education practice is scarce or impossible.

Towards the ultimate objective…

It is evident that, for the moment, higher education in music as a performance art (not theory instruction) -addressed to multiple individuals in real time- is diffucult to accomplish through streaming media. However specialized music tuition, mostly in territories where this is impossible, can be significantly enhanced through the presented practice. Other webcast platforms are also tested towards this task as long as physical-body-action and sound is webcasted through live video image. In this direction the capabilities of connections (links) and direct multimedia streaming (live webcasting) are combined and tested in low-infrastructure-conditions that constantly vary according to the actions which the program covers. The term "Linkcast" may describe the above effort.

The experience gained day by day builds the foundation for the future development of a live & interactive network of remote web-channels available to the world of music-education in Europe.

The Media

Up to this current stage the project is adopting the digital environment of the Adobe Connect Pro v7.5 platform to both the needs of distance learning courses and the needs of multicasting music events. For the distance learning courses it is essential to mention that no virtual web-platform is capable of replacing actual and in person face-to-face interaction.

The ultimate objective of this project is not to substitute traditional teaching methods but to encourage users to start building a relation with music not only as listeners but as active performers from the area in which they live. Peer to peer videoconference combined with diverse streaming capabilities, that allow links with more-than-two users simultaneously, enhanced by diverse audiovisual content can only be a part of music-instrument teaching using ICT.