The project

• Our objective
• The collaboration with the Garamond company
• The steps of the project

The "Do Re Mi … File" objective is to carry out a research-action activity aiming at experimenting a new method of teaching music to children thanks to the use of computerised tools, in particular multimedia.

The use of computers gives many opportunities for music learning process, possibilities of innovation and creation complementary to traditional teaching methods that the partners of the project intend to explore.

The constitution of a European partnership in the framework of this project gives the opportunity of comparing pedagogical approaches, different didactical needs, impacts on pupils on the ground of cultural diversity and of national teaching systems variety, as well as it increases the experience through a fundamental European multicultural added-value.

The project aims at disseminating the experience on a European scale, in order to give concrete and useful results to other educational institutes or free time associations from several European countries for the renewal of music teaching methods.

In order to achieve this ambitious objective the partners of the project set up a collaboration partnership with the multimedia training and publishing house Garamond. This has created a new system for sound and music exploration for children, called "The Theatre of sounds", that the partners of "Do Re Mi … File" project chose as experimentation ground thanks to its characteristics in coherence with the project pedagogical objective foreseen.

Thanks to this system it is possible to create a sound interactive space where children can play with sounds through body expression, as movements can transmit messages that are immediately transformed into sound through a system of sensors/mats linked to the computer. The system gives the possibility to use pre-existent but also to create new "Interactive Sound Environments", which are formed of several sound sequences (sound, music, sound effects) that, interrelated, give life to a story, an environment, a melody etc. Children become actors and give life to animating sounds as if they were the performers of the show: that's why the system refers to the metaphor of "Theatre".
For more information about the Theatre of sounds: www.garamond.it

The system will be used with the "Reader" function in a first time, allowing to run pedagogical proposals already set up by Garamond. Then it will be possible to leave teachers and educators use it with the "Author" function that gives the opportunity to create new sound environments with children. It will be the occasion for them to elaborate a personal approach of system use which remains a tool that should help developing fantasy and creativity with the aim to open new horizons to music approach.

Differentiated or common experimentation proposals will be carried out by the partners, on the base of age, countries, scholarship or non-scholarship contexts, in order to exchange views and to respect in the same time differences and specificity. Teachers and educators will communicate regularly through Internet in order to exchange experiences and proposals.

Children will also have the opportunity to communicate among them and to exchange documents, musical compositions, with the objective to know better national and regional respective heritage.

The collaboration with the Garamond company foresees also the development of the present system version aiming at setting up a version n° 2 through the meeting of competencies between the teachers and educators implied in the project and Garamond consultants. The new version will be experimented and tested too during the second experimenting phase. Through the synergy coming from this collaboration it will be possible to improve the present version from the technical point of view but especially with a European added-value able to propose a new pedagogical approach that the partners intend to transmit and spread away to their European and national colleagues.

Mutual presentation between the partners, exchange of opinions and experiences with special regard to the philosophical approach to music, to the results expected through the project, to competencies and knowledge to transmit to other participants in the framework of the present project.

Research of a multimedia production/publishing pedagogical society able to propose a software in coherence with pedagogical and technical expectations of the partnership: research closed with the agreement signed with Garamond society.

Formal collaboration agreement between "Do Re Mi … File" partners and Garamond company.

Training seminar for the use of "Theatre of sounds" system at Modena for a duration of three days, addressed to educators and teachers participating to the project, and highlight of elements to be improved for the version n°2 system.

Experimentation phase of present "Theatre of sounds" version with the following elements:
· carrying out of activities with children and mutual exchange between the partners on pedagogical approaches implemented;
· technical and pedagogical evaluation of existing system;
· continuous collaboration with Garamond society for the setting up of development elements leading to the version n°2 of the system.

Definition of the "Theatre of sounds" system version n°2 by the Garamond society and up-dating of teachers' competencies in the system's use.

Experimentation phase of "Theatre of sounds" version n°2 with the following elements:
· carrying out of activities with children and mutual exchange between the partners on pedagogical approaches implemented, with a special use of up-dating elements and functions of the system;
· technical and pedagogical evaluation of the system's version n°2.

Final project's evaluation and dissemination of results.

This project has been financed with the support of the European Community in the framework of the Scocrates programme.

The content of this project doesn't reflect necessarily the position of the European Community and doesn't involve its responsibility.