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TOP PICKS | 10 TOOLS
10 Best Arts Tools for High School
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GarageBand
Amazingly powerful audio workstation unleashes creativity
Bottom line: There's exceptional functionality in this solid, all-inclusive audio workstation that's fantastic for high-quality, anytime, and anywhere audio recording and sharing.
Grades: 3–12
Price: Free 32 GB or larger iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 10 or later, or recently purchased Mac laptops/desktops, already have installed installed.
Adobe Spark
Super-flexible design tool for crafting fab images, videos, and sites
Bottom line: This free, one-stop shop for creating sleek graphics, web stories, and animated videos is incredibly easy to use and challenges students to think critically about visual presentation.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free
Autodesk Design Academy
Outstanding project-based tutorials for popular engineering software
Bottom line: The projects found here are a great way to teach and learn digital design; all are truly fantastic (and free!), with everything you need ready to go.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free Free with .edu email account
Film It
A well-rounded, entertaining, hands-on intro to filmmaking
Bottom line: Chock-full of useful advice and hands-on activities that give students a realistic (and really fun!) overview of the movie-making process.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free
Genially
Create professional-looking media with an abundant library of templates
Bottom line: It's a treasure trove of well-designed templates and features that encourage creativity and collaboration, but expect some growing pains.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free, Paid Free plans include unlimited creations and views as well as access to free graphic resources and templates. Student plans are priced at $15/year and add offline viewing, PDF and JPEG downloads, and 10 premium templates per year. Edu Pro plans are $59.90/year and add PowerPoint imports, unlimited premium templates, folders, privacy controls, and more. Master plans are $249.90/year and add training as well as personalization, monitoring, and transfers of creations.
Google Arts & Culture
Well-curated art and history site inspires curious learning
Bottom line: A beautifully presented one-stop shop for compellingly curated and contextualized art, history, and culture resources, but it's lacking educator supports.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free
Autodesk Sketchbook
Impressive creation tool for teens serious about art
Bottom line: Gives students easy access to professional tools for creating digital art.
Grades: 7–12
Price: Free to try While the app is free to try, the full Pro version is $4.99. This version adds a host of creative options from brush types to colors to more layers. There's also a $29.99 per year Sketchbook subscription that unlocks the Pro version across all platforms.
Vidcode
Cool coding tool tuned to teen girls' passions aids creativity
Bottom line: Learn-to-code programs for youths often too narrowly define what can be done with code; Vidcode expands the options, helping girls see code's value in culture and express themselves.
Grades: 8–12
Price: Free, Paid Free introductory projects; contact for pricing for intermediate and advanced projects/lessons as well as training and support resources.
Snapseed
Extremely powerful photo editor will equally delight pros, amateurs
Bottom line: It successfully walks the fine line of photo-editing features, offering satisfying experiences for those making quick edits and those crafting perfect images.
Grades: 9–12
Price: Free
Photoshop Express Photo Editor
Top-notch photo editor helps perfect pics for creative projects
Bottom line: This is a powerful, free creation tool from the industry leader in photo editing.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free
