One of the roles of music teacher education is to produce music teachers with proficiencies in delivering music education at different educational levels. The impact of the development of IT in education in Hong Kong has been tremendous. The Hong Kong Education Department and the teacher education institutions are urging teachers in every discipline (including music) to apply the technology to a certain proportion of teaching and learning. Teacher proficiency requirements in IT have been developed quickly. As such, the philosophy that has prompted the inclusion of technology in music teacher education must be evident. The paper aims to investigate some aspects of the philosophy behind promoting IT to a level of such importance. A paradigm shift has come about in the approaches of teaching and learning from teacher-centered to student-centered for a range of reasons including the advent of IT. The teacher has to take on more of a facilitator role in stimulating students to learn how to learn rather than teaching what to learn. This aligns with the advocacy of flexible and life-long learning which are prevailing thoughts in the education world nowadays. These generic values are to be considered with the more unique values of IT in music teacher education. A new philosophy could imply more drastic changes in education in the near future. This could affect music teacher education as well as music education. The issues of how far a philosophy will induce quality learning and whether this application of IT could equate to quality teaching are to be considered. In a world which calls for reflective thinking as well as quality assurance and excellence, it is hoped that this paper will contribute to the discussion on the philosophy of the application of IT in music teacher education.
[Copyright © 2001 Aichi University of Education.]

With the Hong Kong Government advocating the use of IT in education and the stress on student-focused teaching in education reform, this paper investigates the effects these innovations have on students' learning. Bernstein's concept of strong/weak framing is employed analytically to conceptualise the transaction of teaching and learning. Different levels of framing inherent in the music software and related teaching strategies and the ways they affect children's achievement in composing in lower secondary school settings are investigated, using an experimental study. The results show that children achieved best with very weak framing conditions using the computer to compose, suggesting that a student-focused approach facilitated composing and creativity, and this has several implications to teachers and teacher education today.
[Copyright © 2001 Aichi University of Education.]