- 1 - Using ePEARL for Music Teaching: A Case Study Rena Upitis, Philip C. Abrami, Julia Brook, Meagan Troop, & Laura Catalano Abstract —The electronic portfolio, ePEARL, is one of a suite of web-based tools used to promote self-regulated learning. ePEARL has been used in classrooms in Canada, the United States, Portugal, and Australia. The present study focuses on another educational context: the private music teaching studio. The research reported here was designed to determine the extent to which ePEARL promoted self-regulated learning in private music lessons taken in addition to the music that is part of the school curriculum. Data were comprised of a pre-and post-study student questionnaire; studio observations; the e- portfolios themselves; and an exit interview with the studio teacher. The present paper creates a rich picture of how ePEARL was used by one student, although eight students and three teachers took part in the project. Overall, it was found that ePEARL was an effective way to archive musical interests and accomplishments. Further, students were able to solicit and incorporate feedback from their teachers, peers, and parents regarding their musical activities, and this feedback supported their learning strategies. Students enjoyed using the tool, and ePEARL was effective in helping set goals in the context of learning to play an instrument. Index Terms — e-instruction, e-learning in face-to-face environment, music ——————————  —————————— 1 INTRODUCTION ften learning to play the piano is a mechanistic endeavor, leaving many students disengaged, disenchanted, and unlikely to continue to play after lessons are over. Even students who diligently take lessons throughout their schooling years do not necessarily play the piano for pleasure in their adult lives, becoming fundamentally disengaged from the lessons they took in their youth [1]. Part of the reason for this disengagement may be that students are rarely invited to take an active role in directing their music learning. Another possible reason is that learning to play the piano is not explicitly linked to other music- making activities students undertake, such as playing with a band, music they listen to on personal electronic devices, and music they share with their friends. As Lucy Green has stated, “Music education has had relatively little to do with the development of the majority of those musicians who have produced the vast proportion of the music which the global population listens to, dances to, and enjoys [2, p. 5].The research study described here documents the results of a teaching approach that was designed to close the gap between learning to play the piano in a studio context and other forms of music making, through the use of an electronic portfolio, ePEARL. This was accomplished in the hands of independent studio teachers open to a variety of creative ways of teaching and learning. 2 LITERATURE 2.1 Electronic portfolios and ePEARL An electronic portfolio is a digital container for storing and organizing visual and auditory content, including text, images, video and sound. Electronic portfolios may also be learning tools when they are designed to support learning processes and assessment [3]. Further, electronic portfolios that are web- based provide remote access that encourages learning in any number of learning environments, making it easier for peers, parents, and educators to provide input and feedback in home settings as well as in the music studios themselves. The use of portfolios has become commonplace, and even a requirement in some educational jurisdictions. Research has demonstrated that when students use portfolios, they assume more responsibility for their learning, better understand their strengths and limitations, and learn to set O ————————————————  R. Upitis is a Professor of Arts Education at Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada E-mail: rena.upitis@ queensu.ca.  P. C. Abrami is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance, Concordia University, Montreal, QC E-mail: abrami@education.concordia.ca.  J. Brook is a doctoral candidate at Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada E-mail: julia.brook@queensu.ca .  M. Troop is a doctoral at Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada E-mail: 6mact@queensu.ca .  L. Catalano is a graduate student at Concordia University Email: l_catala@education.concordia.ca