Integrating Arts Through Technology

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 🎨 Integrating Arts Through Technology 🎭

By: Samantha Wilkinson-OIT


While in college I was told it was a good idea to declare a minor. This would “give me an edge on the competition” while interviewing for teaching jobs, they said. I browsed the catalog and one stood out: Creative Arts. When I found out this involved taking courses in Theater, Dance, Visual Arts, and Music, I hesitated. I don’t consider myself to be particularly talented in any one of these areas. But honestly those classes sounded like a lot of fun. I told myself that college is for new experiences, and signed up. 


At the time, I thought these classes would be an outlet from my more difficult courses. I loved that I could be creative and how there wasn’t always a “right” answer. We spent time storytelling and getting to know classmates through various modes of expression. I ended up loving those classes, and never felt burdened to attend. However, I didn’t see the intersection between what I was learning in those courses, and what I was learning about pedagogy. 👩‍🏫


🎶Two years later, during student teaching in a 5th grade classroom, I had a challenging group of students. There were many different needs, they were very talkative, and overall they seemed uninterested in the content. I was feeling defeated while planning a lesson and put on some music. That’s when I realized that I should try to weave my artistic experiences from my creative arts classes into the classroom lessons I was teaching. I approached my mentor teacher and he was on board. As if it were destined, he shared that he played the guitar in a local band, and we developed a spelling lesson where he would play notes to represent letter sounds and blends. 

The next day we tried the lesson. As he got out the guitar, instead of the usual groans when we transitioned to spelling, there were curious faces and lots of questions. We explained the concept and the lesson flew by. Instant engagement. Driving home I thought this is what teaching should look like! Today was fun for the students AND for me. I realized that the minor I chose for my own personal outlet was actually becoming a huge part of my philosophy of teaching. 🎸


👯‍♂️These days, arts integration is a commonly known educational phrase and the importance of infusing the arts has been proven through student achievement. Through arts integration strategies, various parts of the brain are engaged, students create their own meaning, diverse learning styles are met, and it provides cultural context to learning. I could go on about the benefits of arts integration, but I’ll spare you, and instead you can read more here, and here, and also here. 


Let’s be honest though, integrating the arts isn’t always easy in the classroom these days. Lack of materials, experience, or time to plan always seems to interfere. Enter TECHNOLOGY! Through websites and creation platforms, students are able to explore and publish their ideas and artistic expressions. See below for some amazing resources for integrating arts and technology into your classroom and suggestions on how to integrate in Brightspace.


Art Tech Connections: Variety of art creation tools and websites including comic panels, chalk art, and art choice board. 


Music Tech Connections: Students can compose melodies, count music, explore instruments and more!


Wixie: A publishing and creativity platform that allows students to share their ideas, imagination, and understanding through their writing, their voice, their art, and video.


WeVideo: All staff and students have access to this powerful, yet simple multimedia editor. Create videos, screencasts, podcasts, and gifs using your original material or stock media. Options for greecreen videos!


Multimedia Resource: Images, music, sounds, and video editing to create art, music, video theater/ dance.


Google Arts & Culture: Features content (images, videos, artifact) from over 2,000 leading museums and archives.


Britannica Image Quest: Over 3.4 million images of digital art and photography from over 60 leading collections.


Performing Arts Centers: AACPS curated virtual field trips to mixed arts centers, theaters, and opera houses.


Museum Tours: Art galleries and artifacts online, including National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of African American History & Culture Exhibitions


Dance Lesson Plans: Free lessons for integrating movement into K-12 classroom.


ISTE Dance/ Music: Incorporate lyrics and class playlists to enrich lessons. Use dance to teach coding and engineering.


Music Theater: Create music with these sound websites.



Ideas for Arts Integration in Brightspace:


  • Post an image of a piece of art and ask students to SEE, THINK, WONDER in a discussion board.

  • Create an assignment in Brightspace asking students to work in groups to act out a story or chapter they’ve read. They could even do it from a different perspective. Have them record in WeVideo.

  • Post an announcement that challenges students to create a musical number that explains an historical event or science process.

  • Post a link to a collaborative jamboard, where students take photos of themselves or places around the school to showcase shapes or numbers. Or ask students to add photos throughout a unit to a virtual photo album

  • After a lesson, post an exit ticket assignment where students use Wixie to create a piece of art to convey the mood of a poem, current event, or science phenomenon through elements of art (line, color, texture, value, form).

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