Best Arts Education Apps and Websites

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.

Music-exploration app offers great balance of play and guidance

Bottom Line: Great, easily accessible approach to building the foundations for musical literacy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Loop beats like a pro with stellar music-maker

Bottom Line: A stellar, approachable tool for constructing your very own digital beats and tracks.

Compose, perform, and practice with powerful music education tool

Bottom Line: This digital companion for in-person music study is an excellent tool for beginners and pros alike.

Basic movie editor makes for skill-focused, student-centered learning

Bottom Line: Despite some limitations with editing, it's the perfect tool to get teachers and students started with digital video production.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Animate stories with accessible drawing tools and coding blocks

Bottom Line: Kids get a simple peek at computer programming principles by animating stories using their own creations.

Middle school CS curriculum has stellar resources, room for creativity

Bottom Line: A high-quality introductory CS curriculum where students can be creative, collaborate with others, and express themselves, in the classroom or at home.

Create, collaborate and share with versatile design tool

Bottom Line: From interactive presentations to group collaboration to parent communication, Canva is a one-stop shop for a variety of classroom tasks.

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.

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.

Create stylish slideshows and videos with simple, customizable features

Bottom Line: Slick videos and slideshows are easy to make, but it takes a little work to make it fit for classroom use.

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.

Enjoyable and practical design tool supports creators of all ages

Bottom Line: Beautiful templates and user-friendly tools empower students to turn their creative ideas into professional-looking media.

Flexible app transforms sketches into pro-level designs and diagrams

Bottom Line: A terrific choice for creating simple diagrams or presentations on iOS.

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.

Impressive creation tool for teens serious about art

Bottom Line: Gives students easy access to professional tools for creating digital art.

Online art museum empowers students to exhibit, explain their work

Bottom Line: A time-tested digital art museum where students can share work, reflect on their artistic process, and help teachers assess artistic concept comprehension.

Stellar content, practical tips for integrating arts into every subject

Bottom Line: If you're willing to do some digging and prep, this is a terrific resource for integrating the arts across the curriculum.

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.

Hands-on activities and explorations give the art world a splash of color

Bottom Line: A wonderful site that really engages kids in the world of art and provides great inspirations.

Immersive virtual exhibit tool is attractive and versatile but fussy

Bottom Line: For teachers and students who can invest the time, Artsteps provides a compelling, free option for presenting and exploring images and audio of any kind.

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.