The teacher has no obligation to use the practice log as a competition, since students can’t other students’ practice logs at this time. But if the student knows he is expected to fill out the log, having that accountability can be a good motivator for the student to practice. And even if not motivational, having the record is helpful for the student and the teacher to review it in conjunction with the progress being made by the student in their lessons.

There may certainly be students who don’t want to login and record their practice. There will also be students who don’t want to fill out a paper practice sheet. Although I think most would prefer to use the computer these days. This is all up to the teacher to decide whether they will require students to record practice, or only recommend it, or not worry about it at all.

I think the software tool you have looks to be ideally suited to practice competitions where students can view their progress against peers.

My concern would be motivation and access to fill in the tool on a regular basis. There is an assumption here that the student will logon regularly and update their information – I would think some students would challenge this assumption. . . .

My second concern would be that the focus here remains on ‘amount’ of practice. The focus should surely be on the quality of practice and best use of time. Tracking in a tool like this might encourage students to view time spent as the main indicator of practice success – which to my mind is a problem.

I can see in the future when there is universal access to online tools and technology that this may be the best way to track and manage students progress. The current state and availibilty of technology to my mind means that use of a good quality notebook which is permanently in the instrument case is preferred.

Unless of course someone can convince me that all my students will logon each and every day to record progress and that progress recorded would be task based and not time based. . . . .