Checking Out Tech: Google Arts & Culture Experiments

 After talking standards and information literacy the past two weeks, let's jump into looking at a tech tool that gives us an opportunity to connect many of these pieces together!

I currently work at a school of the arts which serves students who are gifted in a variety of artistic areas. Each student has a core art which is the main reason for their attendance, and they treat these courses just as seriously as their academic courses. Our fine arts teachers are always searching for new ways to incorporate both technology and higher level thinking into their arts-based instruction. Ideally, the school librarian would be a support to them just as much as to the academic teachers within our building. 

Post of Inspiration

Image source: http://education-forum.ca/2018/11/20/www-cultofpedagogy-com/

I often check in on the Cult of Pedagogy site to see if there is a post which is of interest or a podcast episode which connects to something I want or need to know more about. One of the recent posts was one of the posts popular on tech related sites which basically list several new tech tools with a brief write up about each one. Sometimes these posts are helpful, and sometimes they feel like the same "best of" round up which can be found on many other sites. 

6 Ed Tech Tools to Try in 2022

Knowing my fine arts teachers are extremely open to integrating more technology and collaboration into their curriculum, the second entry on the post caught my eye. It is about a newer area of Google called Experiments, and there is an entire subsection devoted to Google's Arts & Culture Lab. This is a space where coders can submit different experiments in programming for the public to access. There is certainly a lot to explore within Experiments, even after visiting the Arts & Culture subsection, but I found two Experiments which have a lot of potential for fine arts teachers to incorporate into their classrooms.

Calling All Fine Arts Teachers!

Have you been looking for an easy and approachable way to incorporate more technology into your classes? Are you also a fan of experimenting with arts, music, and collaboration? If so, I have two potential experiments for you to introduce to your class. Both take minimal prep, no extra logins, and will have your students learning and collaborating about the amazing experiences art and music bring us. Keep reading to check out this tech!

Experiment #1 - Puzzle Party

This experiment, found here: https://experiments.withgoogle.com/puzzle-party takes Google's Arts & Culture catalog and transforms the works into collaborative jigsaw puzzles. Users can decide on the complexity of puzzle via the number of pieces and then invite an unlimited number of users to collaborate in solving. 

Kehinde Wiley's Portrait of President Obama in Puzzle Party

Each puzzle's work of art is linked to information about the history of the work of art, artist, medium, and current location. While students could certainly just used this as a brain break or activity as they finish other work, a fine arts teacher could also use this as a collaborative activity within a study about a specific piece, artist, or movement. Students would easily have access to an activity where they have to closely read a piece of art in order to put the jigsaw together. They also have access to reliable and accurate information about the artwork through Google Arts & Culture - including interacting with the artwork in AR and exploring the work's time period.

Source: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/kgGqONkp0JVsCA

Ultimately, a teacher could plan a collaborative research assignment solely based on a piece of art students choose to put together in Puzzle Party. As a side note, if anyone wants to collaborate to put Obama's official portrait back together, you can join me here: https://g.co/arts/afHzsrCKqhz47g2a9

Experiment #2 - Assisted Melody

This experiment can be found here: https://experiments.withgoogle.com/assisted-melody and introduces students to the distinct musical styles and a brief history of three classical composers (Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven). Students view information about the composer and then place notes on a staff to compose their own melody. Once they are done, they can click the "Harmonize" button and the code works to create a full harmony with the student-composed melody. Students can then play the harmony in a few different modern instruments and share it with others. 

A music, piano, strings, or band teacher could incorporate this Experiment to teach musical history, melody, harmony, and show students in a fun way how the instrument playing a piece affects its sound. Students could also collaborate to create a melody or work off of a 4-5 note stem the teacher gives them to see how many different melodies can be created. 

Here is my attempt - please don't judge me, I love music, but I have not taken piano since senior year of high school! 

Ann's Melodic Attempt 

Wrapping Up the Check Out

I hope you have the time to explore these two Experiments or any of the others offered through Google's site. These could certainly show teachers and students that code and coding can be used in a variety of ways - even to help us better understand arts and culture!

References:

Gonzalez, J. (2022, January 18). 6 ed tech tools to try in 2022. Cult of Pedagogy. Retrieved February 2, 2022, from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/edtech2022/