Giving students more control over their musical education has led a Queen’s professor to investigate the potential of a new online learning tool. Recently, the iSCORE research and development program was granted funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant.

 “Long-term funding will enable us to conduct a national study on the use of iSCORE in music education, to develop curriculum supports and teacher professional development modules, and to make the tool more widely available,” says education professor Rena Upitis, Queen’s University lead on the project.

Dr. Upitis, Ms Angela Elster (The Royal Conservatory of Music) and Dr Philip Abrami (Concordia University) launched iSCORE in January this year and over 500 teachers are already using the program.

iSCORE supports music-making with a wide range of features including a personalized homepage that enables students to set goals and priorities, an embedded recorder and online portfolio allowing students to record and save practices and performances, links to composition and sequencing tools and interactive lesson plans for teachers.

SSHRC is providing $1.9 million over six years for the iSCORE program.

Learn more about the iSCORE online learning tool.