You don’t have to be a fortune teller to predict that Educational Technology is the future of our learning and education system. The Edtech boom has led to improved results in student engagement and better understanding of difficult concepts. While some teachers are still grappling with the intricacies of edtech, Gen Z kids are more than eager to welcome technology into the classroom.
Many schools have embraced Edtech in their curriculum when it comes to teaching subjects like science, math, history, geography, etc. But the true potential of edtech will be left untapped until it is used to rekindle the interest around creative art, an area of education that seems to have been neglected by our school system.
The decline of arts in education
The state of creative art education in our schools is pitiable as the number of institutions that actually delve into the pedagogy of arts are dwindling. As toddlers and kindergartners, kids are introduced to creative arts in the form of painting, music, dance, reading, and writing. But as they grow older, there is significant emphasis on subjects like maths and science, pushing arts aside like an unwanted stepchild.
While subjects based on facts, research, and logic are considered critical to have a successful career, kids are often deprived of opportunities to hone skills like imagination and critical thinking that comes along with studying arts. Students are often discouraged from taking arts as a major as it is considered a non-lucrative career path.
Such unfavorable mentality towards creative arts has led to its decline, thus hampering the overall academic development of children. With arts taking a backseat in our education system, there is a lack of interest and understanding among students when it comes to pursuing creative arts.
How Edtech can help
Now that we have understood that cultivating creative art skills is important for a child’s intellectual growth, it’s time that we focus on ways to bring back art education into our school curriculum.
Sadly, the traditional ways of teaching art might fail to pique the interest of Gen Z students that are hooked to technology and social media 24X7. Here’s where Edtech comes into the picture.
Considering how tech savvy today’s kids are, the best way to imbibe creative art skills is by integrating art teaching with technology. There are plenty of apps and tools available on the internet that can revive the interest of students towards art skills like music, dance, painting, photography, writing, animation, acting, and many others.
Let’s take a look at a few creative art skills and how they can be developed with the help of Edtech:
Painting
Some people are born with a talent for sketching, drawing, and painting. But these skills can also be cultivated through the use of numerous interesting painting apps that are available online.
Artflow, one such painting app for android users, is an amazing platform for beginners to dabble with the fundamentals of sketching and painting. Apps like these will help students to explore the world of online painting and will inspire them to give a shot at painting in real life too.
Writing
Writing is one art form that has benefited the most with the Edtech boom. There are thousands of blogging platforms and writing apps out there that can help students explore their writing prowess. Apart from blogs, there are grammar apps too to make sure that your writing is clean and error free.
There are numerous writing help websites like The Write Practice, 123Helpme, etc., that teach and inspire students to write research papers, essays, blogs, short stories, etc. Blogging platforms like WordPress, as well as many writing forums, provide students an opportunity to showcase their writing skills to the world and help them get feedback on their written material.
Music
Music is like a vast ocean, so the sooner you start learning it the better you will be able to understand the depths of it. There are millions of music learning and instrument learning apps out there. Here are some popular apps:
- Real Piano: This app is suitable for beginners to explore the word of keyboard and grand piano.
- Note Perfect: This popular app helps students read, write and understand different notes of music.
- Guitar Lab: This application is a craze among guitar enthusiasts and is perfect for newbies to learn chords.
Dance
One of the many joys of life is to dance to the rhythm of music. It is one of the basic forms of human expression.Thanks to the advent of YouTube, there are thousands of video channels over the internet that teach you how to dance free of cost. Students learning through videos will start developing a passion for dance and might even consider it as more than just a hobby.
Animation
Animation, also known as computer graphics, might be one of the newest art forms developed in the last few decades. But thanks to video games, cartoons, and movies, computer animation is the next big thing in the field of art. Apart from technical aspects, it requires immense visualization skills and imagination power. Kids can develop an interest for animation by simply playing video games or watching their favorite cartoon as they arouse curiosity in kids to know more.
Photography and video editing
DSLRs and Adobe Photoshop are widely popular among youngsters interested in photography as well as video editing. Just like all the art forms mentioned above, photography and video editing can be learned with the help of a bunch of amazing apps and websites.
While there are tons of video tutorials for teaching photography, Photo.net is a website that is a must visit for every student photographer. When it comes to video editing, Adobe Premiere is the best software for beginners as it requires a gradual learning curve and offers lots of plugins to incorporate cool video effects.
Conclusion
Apart from trying these cool apps, software, and websites for developing skills for specific art forms, one can try mind mapping methods to spark imagination and creativity that will be very useful while practicing any art form.
Since today’s generation is so quick to grasp the latest trends in technology, using Edtech for drawing students to develop creative art skills can be the start of an art renaissance in our schooling system.
Hopefully in the next few years, our education system, with the help of Edtech, will look at creative arts with renewed respect and make changes in the school curriculum to inculcate love and understanding for art among students.
