# Online and In-Class Evaluation of a Music Theory E-Learning Platform
## 8 Conclusions and Future Work  
The paper presented a further development of the Troubadour platform. The platform was developed for music ear training and includes applications for interval and rhythmic dictation exercising. Since the platform did not incorporate functionalities that would accommodate long-term interaction with the teachers, we added homework and challenge modules, which included new challenges weekly. The administrative module enables the teachers to observe and react based on the provided insights. The homework and challenge modules automatically generated exercises and motivated students every week. To evaluate the students' engagement with the platform and gather insights into long-term use, we collected data from students over a three-month period. The students were given exercises, depending on their class, on a weekly basis. No incentive was given for participation, and the amount of homework completed by a student did not influence their in-class grade or give any bonus. The collected data showed high student engagement throughout the period. The evaluation period was also impacted by external factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The students were taught remotely for the first two months (March-April) and in-class (May-June). Interestingly, the students used the platform for ear training during the first part--when the regular lessons were taught remotely--and in the second part of the evaluation period, when the learning process moved back to the classroom. The platform has proven to sufficiently aid the home ear training, which demanded significant effort from the teacher to prepare and grade and lacked the instant feedback and infinity of automatically generated exercises for the student. The newly developed modules for classes, homework and challenges have proven to aid the teachers in their assignment of exercises significantly. Nevertheless, there are several functionalities still to be implemented. The next development cycle will include harmonic dictation exercises, which are currently unavailable on the platform and will complete the three fundamental aspects of ear training. Additionally, we will extend the existing applications using different styles of training. For example, the rhythmic dictation application will include a response by tapping, given a displayed rhythmic sequence. Similarly, the interval dictation application will also have the inverted mode, where the user observes the interval sequence and sings or hums the response. These extensions will include porting the application to a native mobile application. The API interface presented in this paper is already available. It can support mobile application integrations and other forms or use in different educational tools, including existing LMSs and virtual reality headsets. As one of the key challenges which need to be tackled, the user design of the platform emerged. We collected students' feedback and identified that the design style should be improved since the current design was initially focused on teenage users and now seems to be more appropriate for elementary school students. Initial wire-frames were already made, and the development is currently undergoing with a designer, based on teacher and student feedback. The new design is expected to be made available in the late spring of 2022, along with new applications for ear training. While the platform currently includes only ear-training applications, its support can be extended into music theory and instrument training. For example, the aforementioned inverted exercises could take a user's humming or tapping as an input instead of typing. Furthermore, the exercises could be adapted to support singing or instrument as input, further extending the usability of the platform for remote practice. The decision to switch from a web-only platform to web and mobile implementation in the near future is also based on the ability to process the audio input for such tasks efficiently. Conceptualization, M.P., P.S. and M.M. ; methodology, P.S. and M.M. ; software, F.K.