Technology and Arts seem to be poles apart and usually no connection is found between them, but when lessons on Arts and Music are integrated into the teaching plan, we realize that technology has a great positive impact on them.
Education in Arts and Music provides students with academic achievement, social, emotional, cultural development and civic engagement. Involvement in the Arts leads to gains in cognitive abilities, critical thinking and verbal skills. Arts learning can also improve motivation, concentration, confidence and teamwork.
But, even with such stark benefits of Arts and Music, education in their fields has been diminishing for quite a long time now, owing to tight budgets, inability to integrate them into the classroom curriculum, and a public sense that the arts are lovely but not essential. Yet against this backdrop, Arts and Music as subjects are now being adopted by a growing number of schools. Educational institutions have begun using Arts as a learning tool (musical notes to teach fractions), they are incorporating arts into other core classes (writing and performing a role play), creating a school environment rich in arts and culture and hands-on arts instruction.
The purpose of this article is to equip learners and teachers with the necessary online resources and tools for learning and teaching Arts/Music. Here’s the list of 10 substantial tools and resources which aid in Arts and Music education and are appropriate to the diverse range of needs and experiences of students:
Google Art Project – It hosts the world’s cultural treasures online. It has everything about artworks, landmarks, world heritage sites, digital exhibitions and museums. Explore and view artworks at astounding zoom levels and even create and share your own collection of Art.
Artrage 2
– It’s an easy to use, stylish painting package for Windows, Mac OS X, and iPad. It is a high quality comprehensive art program with an intuitive user interface that allows the selection of medium, texture and color. Journey through it to learn to paint with technique and style.
Art Babble
– It’s a website that contains high quality art-related video content from more than 50 cultural institutions around the world. Its video channels cover a wide range of topics including Abstract Art, European Art and Design, African Art, graphic design, glass, sculpture, surrealism and much more.
MOOM
– The Museum of Online Museums, is a design firm offering online collections and exhibits from museums and art galleries, including the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It consists of links to museums with an online presence, exhibits of design and advertising, collections and galleries.
Smarthistory.org
– It’s a leading open educational resource for Art history which makes high-quality art history content freely available to anyone, anywhere. It has videos, voice threads and audio lessons about eras and themes in art history which can be browsed by artist name, style of work, theme or time period.
Science of Music
– Makes you explore the science of music through online exhibits, movies and questions. Along with this, you can compose, mix, dance, drum, experiment, and listen to music.
Classics for Kids
– Brings classical music’s great composers to life through music and stories. It offers classical music games online and allows you to compose your own music and share it with your friends. It also provides teachers with practical, effective lesson plans and activities that use classical music to help children learn and all its content meets the national and state standards.
Music Tech Teacher – It is a site for students to read, write, compose, publish and perform their music. Student work, videos, photos and music compositions are posted here. It is also used to provide music technology links, quizzes, resources and information to music teachers interested in using technology as an aid to music instruction.
MusicTheory.net
– It offers animated lessons to explore the fundamentals of music. You can create custom exercises to improve your musical recognition and use interactive tools to calculate notes, intervals, and chords in a specific key.
Buzzmachines
– It is an easy to use free modular software based synthesizer whose entire system is based on objects, which may be routed in a modular fashion, giving you the freedom of creativity. It is modular, expandable, in real-time, speedy, portable and free.
It is undeniable that the stimulation of the Art and Musical experience do more than sweeten an individual’s life. They can connect people more deeply to the world and open them to new ways of perceiving and creating the foundation to forge social bonds with the community. There’s lots of evidence that kids immersed in Arts and Music develop high creativity and intellect levels and hence perform better in their academic tests, compared to those who aren’t involved with these subjects.
I feel that the purposes of education apart from preparing children for jobs and making them responsible citizens of a country, should be to teach them to be human beings first, who can enjoy the deeper forms of beauty. You’re welcome to share your views, knowledge or clarify doubts on the context. The comment box awaits you.
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