MUNCIE, Ind. -- A curriculum redesign and an alliance with world-renowned Coda Music Technology are helping Ball State University prepare aspiring music teachers for 21st-century demands.

The Ball State School of Music is revamping its nationally respected music education program to address Indiana’s new teacher certification standards that emphasize performance-based assessment.

The project was made possible with a grant from the George and Frances Ball Fund for Academic Excellence and marks the first time the curriculum has been completely redesigned in several decades.

Technology innovations play a key role in training and assessing music education students under the new curriculum and standards, officials say. The Coda Music Technology alliance helps by providing state-of-the-art music performance and notation software to enhance teaching and learning.

The technology emphasis stands to make music education students more skilled and marketable for today’s schools and more effective and efficient as teachers. About 60 percent of all music teachers in Indiana are Ball State graduates.

"Students are already raising the bar," said music education professor Peter McAllister, project co-director for technology implementation. "Students come to Ball State expecting us to supply them with the technology tools that will enhance their learning."

Computer and informational technology will be used to train music education students, track what performance-based criteria they have met and help them develop professional portfolios on CD-ROM, said Don Ester, Ball State’s music education area coordinator and the project co-director for curriculum redesign.

Course work will expose music education students to instructional and administrative software, CD-ROM and Internet

applications. Many tools are also available to students in the school’s expanded Music Technology Resource Lab.

The Coda alliance is providing industry-standard notation and accompaniment software for Ball State’s student practice studios, music faculty studios and offices, rehearsal spaces, concert halls and placement in middle schools and high schools.

With the alliance, Ball State also will test advance releases of important technological advancements affecting music learning and teaching and provide input on developing and applying new products from Coda, a world leader in music technology.

Several music faculty members have integrated technology into their teaching by using SmartMusic and Finale and offering courses on the Internet. Ester created a field course in which students used SmartMusic with middle-school youths in Anderson, Ind., this spring. Other interactive music courses are on the Internet.

Music education faculty members also envision innovations such as electronic submission and grading of class papers, computer-based exams with audio elements, and interactive programs that let students explore teaching scenarios on the computer.

When the students become teachers, they can use computer applications to handle administrative tasks such as budgeting, grading and fund raising more efficiently, allowing more time for instruction, Ester said. Performance software can make students’ individual and small-group practicing more effective and enjoyable.

"Principals look at technology skills when they’re interviewing students for teaching positions," McAllister said. "They don’t usually have the money to train them, so they prefer them to already be trained. That demand is on us and our curriculum here."