Empowering children with a digital musical instrument mobile app: Perspectives of early childhood educators

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived empowerment of children through the use of a digital musical instrument (DMI) mobile app from the perspective of early childhood educators. Twenty-eight early childhood educators were invited to attend a workshop and guided in the use of a motion-based DMI mobile app, evaluating its potential to empower children to make music within a classroom setting. While participants’ positive responses revealed that the accessibility afforded by the mobile technology could help the children overcome the instrumental learning thresholds and enjoy the music-making process, along with the competency developments afforded by the learning tool, limitations, in the form of ethical and societal considerations, hinted that the fluent adoption of the DMI mobile app in the teaching and learning process may be affected. The findings of this study shed light on the design of music and mobile technology for potentially furthering children’s musical explorations.