TOP PICKS | 38 TOOLS
Best Arts Education Apps and Websites
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Podcast and Music Creation and Appreciation Tools
Bandimal
Captivating music creation app for young musicians
Bottom line: For iOS-infused preschool and kindergarten classrooms, this could be an excellent intro to electronic music.
Easy Music - Give kids an ear for music
Music-exploration app offers great balance of play and guidance
Bottom line: Great, easily accessible approach to building the foundations for musical literacy.
Piano Maestro by JoyTunes
Great sharing features help parents, teachers support piano practice
Bottom line: A cool way to get piano students, their teachers, and their parents on the same page, but it might need tweaking to remove some distractions.
Piano Practice with Wolfie
Stellar piano practice tool supports reflection, persistence
Bottom line: An excellent platform for supporting serious music practice if you can make it logistically work in your classroom.
Yousician
Appealing, feedback-rich tool helps kids build core musical skills
Bottom line: Paired with great in-person instruction, this is a fabulous tool to boost musical skills.
WURRLYedu
Sharp music program has popular music, standards-based curriculum
Bottom line: Since it features a standards-based curriculum and good skills-building for students, this is worth a look for teachers.
iTooch Music
Charming visuals, challenging quizzes build solid musical knowledge
Bottom line: iTooch Music is a terrific reference and review tool for beginning to advanced music students.
Noteflight
Safe, collaborative space for creating and sharing original music
Bottom line: This useful, well-constructed music composition tool lets classrooms collaborate and comment on student-created songs.
The Orchestra
Stellar interactive features bring classical music vibrantly to life
Bottom line: A terrifically designed tool that invites students into the often unwelcoming world of classical music in a way that deepens appreciation and understanding of the complexities and beauties of the art form.
Anchor
Podcasting app is super easy to use, if you can do it all in one take
Bottom line: There are few easier ways to publish a podcast, but that ease of use comes at the cost of one-take creation and few tools for post-production.
Auxy Studio - Music & Beat Maker
Loop beats like a pro with stellar music-maker
Bottom line: A stellar, approachable tool for constructing your very own digital beats and tracks.
Flat
Terrific composition tool empowers budding musicians to create, share
Bottom line: An excellent tool for writing and sharing musical creations.
Image, Photo, and Video Editing Tools
iMovie
Movie editor will satisfy beginner and intermediate creators
Bottom line: Despite some limitations with editing, it’s the perfect tool to get teachers and students started with digital video production.
Adobe Capture CC
Magical design tool extracts colors, patterns, and more from images
Bottom line: The rare combo of "wow" factor and utility, this tool help students recognize and use the designed world around them.
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.
Adobe Photoshop Mix - Cut out, combine, create
Impressive photo-editing app focuses on compositing, blending imagery
Bottom line: While it's tackling a slightly niche design need (blending, layering, compositing photos), Photoshop Mix is an incredible tool that makes these processes shockingly simple on mobile devices.
Adobe Premiere Clip
Decent on-the-go video editor shines when using other Adobe tools
Bottom line: It's a good tool that gets better when using other Creative Cloud apps, but the limited features make this a hard sell for anything other than introductory editing.
PicCollage Grid & Photo Editor
Versatile, intuitive, engaging collage maker yields impressive designs
Bottom line: With some privacy setup, and possibly upgrading to the paid version, this can be an excellent design tool for creating custom collages, teaching graphic design, layout, and photo editing.
PicMonkey Photo Editor Design
Reliable photo editor built for design and social sharing
Bottom line: A great, social media-friendly option for teaching teens design, layout, and photo editing, but the paid version is more competitive with other tools.
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.
Digital Design and Coding Tools
Codeable Crafts
Animate stories with accessible drawing tools and coding blocks
Bottom line: Kids get a simple peek at computer programming principles by animating stories using code blocks.
Google CS First
Middle school CS platform offers stellar resources, organizing tools
Bottom line: If your middle school doesn't have a CS program or club, now you do!
Canva
Create snazzy designs in seconds with flexible, cloud-based tool
Bottom line: A flexible, accessible way to get kids -- especially design novices -- creating digitally in your classroom if you have stable internet and time to get students set up to be successful.
Engare
Unique puzzle game's artistic geometry rewards and frustrates
Bottom line: Play for the surprising geometry and beautiful art; consult the web or just walk away for a while when stuck.
The Noun Project
Think in pictures with vibrant visual language everyone can understand
Bottom line: It's a neat, well-executed concept with lots of possibilities for learning, imagining, and creating.
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.
Animoto
Create snazzy video slideshows with simple, flexible features
Bottom line: Slick music videos and slideshows are easy to make, but students need more controls to personalize them.
Lucidpress
Collaborative publishing and design tool has lots of options, templates
Bottom line: An easy-to-use mash-up of InDesign and Google Drive, Lucidpress fills a niche for publication creation and collaboration.
Adobe Spark
Super-flexible design tool for crafting fab images, videos, and sites
Bottom line: This 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.
Grafio 3 - Diagram Maker
Flexible app transforms sketches into pro-level designs and diagrams
Bottom line: A terrific choice for creating simple diagrams or presentations on iOS.
Drawing and Sketching Tools
Drawn to Discover
How-to-draw videos build motor skills and cross-curricular connections
Bottom line: This novel drawing curriculum is a cool idea and well-structured, but it could better support students' own creative exploration.
Tayasui Sketches
Slick and satisfying illustration app on par with the competition
Bottom line: This tool, while a bit of an adjustment from pen and paper, gives students ample room to grow creatively.
Autodesk Sketchbook
Impressive creation tool for teens serious about art
Bottom line: Gives students easy access to professional tools for creating digital art.
Comprehensive Resources for Arts Education
Artsonia Kids Art Museum
Online art museum empowers students to exhibit, explain their work
Bottom line: A well-loved digital art museum that allows students to share work and reflect on their artistic process while helping teachers assess student understanding of artistic concepts.
ArtsEdge
Impressive cross-curricular resource helps put the A in STEAM
Bottom line: A useful and engaging resource for integrating the arts into a variety of other subject areas.
MetKids
Whimsical, kid-friendly intro to the wide world of art
Bottom line: A wonderful, endlessly detailed way to get kids engaged in the world of art.
Wizard School!
Curated videos and creative challenges ignite active learning
Bottom line: There's plenty of material to inspire kids to embark on learning adventures that get them to explore, create, and share safely on the screen and off.
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.
