Building a Meaningful Digital Art Curriculum (Ep. 535)

Resources and Links

• Come join the Art of Ed Community!
• See the Community’s September Giveaway!
• Take a look at AOE’s FLEX Curriculum
• Explore the Digital Art I and Digital Art II curricula
• Discussing Digital Art and Technology
• What Can Technology-Enhanced Learning Look Like in the Art Room?

Transcript

Tim: Okay, Angela Matsuoka is joining me now. Angela, how are you?

Angela Matsuoka: Great. How are you, Tim?

Tim: I’m doing really well. I’m looking forward to talking to you. It’s been a while since you’ve been on the podcast, so if you don’t mind, could you introduce yourself and let everybody know what your job is and what you do here at The Art of Education?

Angela Matsuoka: Absolutely. I’m a K–12 curriculum designer here at The Art of Education University, and I’ve been in this role for five years. Before joining AOEU, I was the fine arts consultant at the Iowa Department of Education. I’ve also worked in the community arts world as an editor and writer. Before all of that, I spent about 10 years as a K–12 art educator in Washington, D.C., and Iowa.

My background brings together different facets of art education. I’ve worked in the classroom, and I’ve also thought about curriculum and education from a broader systems perspective. These days, I’m thankful to be able to use that experience to develop and curate content that helps art teachers do their jobs a little more easily and with a little more joy.

Tim: That’s a really good way to explain it. That’s one of the things I love about the FLEX team. You have a very interesting background, and most of the people on the team have interesting backgrounds as well. Sharing all of that experience and the different ways you’ve worked in art education really informs everything you do.

I wanted to have you on to talk about digital art and the new digital art curricula. Before we dive into that, can you talk about the FLEX curricula in general? What is your team doing with the curricula, and what do you have to offer teachers?

Angela Matsuoka: I would love to. In addition to continuing to build out our library of hundreds of lesson plans and thousands of resources, one of the things our team has been focused on recently is helping educators see the bigger picture of how all of that FLEX content can fit together.

We’ve been organizing our content into curricula, which essentially gives teachers a roadmap for sequencing FLEX lessons across an academic term or even an entire school year. Instead of having hundreds of individual lessons and having to figure out where to start or what to teach next, educators can see how the lessons connect, how skills might build over time, and how different concepts and processes complement each other.

That sequencing piece is valuable because curriculum planning can be such a huge lift for teachers every year—especially for new teachers or teachers who are switching grade levels or districts. We’re trying to take some of that work off their plates while still giving them flexibility, which we know is so important.

Our FLEX curricula are frameworks that educators can use and adapt rather than something that tells them exactly how they have to teach. We have curricula across all grades, K–12. We have grade-level offerings from kindergarten through eighth grade. For example, we have fifth-grade visual art. At the high school level, we have more media-specific courses, such as Introduction to Art and Sculpture One and Two.

The goal is to make planning easier while helping teachers create a more cohesive, rigorous, and vertically aligned learning experience for their students.

Tim: I love all of that. You mentioned teachers, especially at the beginning of their careers. I remember being responsible for writing my own curriculum and having no idea where to start. You have all of these lessons, and you think, “That looks cool. When should I teach it?” You have no idea how to sequence everything or put it together in a meaningful way.

When I saw that the team was putting together these curricula, I thought it was a great idea. Like you said, it’s not necessarily prescriptive. It can be if you need it to be, but it gives you the resources and ideas you need to put together something that works for you and your students.

Can we talk specifically about the new digital art curricula? I believe there are two of them. What can teachers expect to find, and what are you most excited about?

Angela Matsuoka: For digital art specifically, we’ve created two curricula: Digital Art One and Digital Art Two. Together, they cover a broad range of processes and skills, including digital drawing, photo editing, graphic design, 3D modeling and printing, and digital citizenship.

What I’m particularly excited about is the range of ways students can create and problem-solve with digital tools in these lessons. Students move between different processes and consider how these tools can be integrated into other art forms, used to communicate ideas, and used to solve problems.

Some of our newest lessons and resources are exciting because they push FLEX into areas we haven’t explored before. We now have lessons focused on 3D modeling and printing, CAD and digital architecture, augmented reality, or AR, and AI applications.

The bottom line is that teachers can expect a curriculum that reflects the current digital art landscape students are encountering while still approaching it through the lens of an art classroom. You’ll see an emphasis on creative thinking, design, experimentation, decision-making, and student voice and choice.

Tim: That’s awesome. As you were talking through everything included, I was thinking about how much I like the idea of having students think in three dimensions—even four dimensions—and figure out all of those different possibilities. It pushes them beyond what a lot of traditional lessons do.

Do you have a few favorite lesson plans, resources, or pieces of content in these curricula that you really want to highlight for teachers?

Angela Matsuoka: Yes, there are a few that I’m especially excited about. We have Designing with Dimension and Practical Printing. Those are two new lessons that focus on 3D modeling and 3D printing.

With Designing with Dimension, we introduce students to 3D modeling, with the option to 3D print as well. The emphasis is on creating and combining forms to design a digital sculpture or object.

In Practical Printing, which is a follow-up lesson, students take that a step further by designing and 3D printing an object that solves a real-world problem. They might create a stand for a phone, a doorstop, or something similar.

I also really like Overlaying Worlds, a new FLEX lesson that explores augmented reality. AR was relatively new for me, and I think it will be new and exciting for many art teachers and students as well.

In this lesson, students think about how they can use AR to enhance an existing artwork or change a viewer’s experience of it. Through applications and JavaScript coding, they can add video, movement, or interaction. It gets students thinking about artwork as something that can be multimodal, interactive, and transformative.

I’ll highlight one more: Digital Architecture. That’s another favorite because it walks educators and students through creating digital blueprints and transforming them into 3D architectural models using CAD software.

That can seem daunting for educators, but there are some beginner-friendly and student-friendly options available. What I love is that students aren’t just learning CAD. They’re thinking about design problems. What makes a space interesting, efficient, accessible, or welcoming? Who is going to use the space, and what do they need?

That’s what connects all of these lessons for me. They push students beyond simply making something on a screen or using a device. Students are thinking in three dimensions, designing for a user or a need, considering how people will interact with or experience their work, and seeing digital tools as a way to solve creative problems.

Tim: I love that. As you were talking about those lessons, I was thinking about how much they push students to think in three dimensions and even four dimensions. It really does move them beyond what a lot of traditional lessons ask them to do.

You mentioned earlier that one of your goals is to make life easier for teachers by giving them the resources they need to make planning and putting things together less hectic. What do you hope these curricula will make easier for teachers? What challenges are you hoping to help them solve when they teach digital art or bring digital art into their classrooms?

Angela Matsuoka: I hope these curricula will help demystify some of the processes and technology often involved in teaching digital art. We want to support teachers wherever they are in their journey—whether they’re developing a scope and sequence for a high school digital art or media arts class for the first time, refining an existing curriculum, or simply looking for a few new lesson ideas.

We’ve tried to balance several things: exploring and understanding complex technology, connecting those skills to practical and professional applications, getting at the “why,” and giving students plenty of choice in how they create.

Ultimately, we want to help teachers give students more than just technical skills. We want students to become digitally literate and empowered creators who understand not only what technology is or what it can do, but also how to use it thoughtfully and responsibly.

Tim: That’s the segue I was looking for. I wanted to circle back to what you said about creative thinking, experimentation, and student voice and choice.

When you’re teaching digital art, how do you make sure the lessons go beyond, “Here’s how we use this platform”? From your perspective, what can teachers do to ensure that students—and teachers, too—are seeing the bigger picture?

Angela Matsuoka: I think one of the biggest shifts is to start with the artistic goal or the standards rather than the technology.

Instead of starting with, “Today, we’re going to learn this application,” or, “We’re going to learn how to use Procreate,” start with, “What do we want to explore, communicate, or create?” Then the technology serves us. It becomes a tool for achieving our goals.

That also opens up opportunities for teachers to bring in the same things they already value in their art classrooms: creative problem-solving, experimentation, constructive critique, iteration, and intentional choices.

A digital tool might be new, but all of those artistic processes are not. They’re foundational.

I also think it’s important to give students opportunities to step back and examine the technology itself. Why did you choose this tool? What are its strengths and limitations? How does it affect your creative process? What ethical questions come with using it?

We want students to leave the classroom not just knowing how to use a platform or application, but knowing how to make thoughtful decisions and understanding that technology is simply one of many tools they can use to bring their ideas to life.

Tim: I have one last question for you. It’s a big one, but I think it’s a good way to finish. We would probably be remiss if we didn’t touch on AI, especially because it’s so pervasive right now—particularly in digital art.

What conversations should art teachers be having with students about AI, authorship, originality, ethics, technology, or whatever direction you want to take? What do you think teachers should be talking about with students when it comes to artificial intelligence?

Angela Matsuoka: I think art teachers have an important role to play because AI is changing not only how images are made, but also how we think about authorship and originality.

One conversation we need to have with students is: What does it mean to be the author or creator of an artwork?

If you use AI to generate an image, where does your creative contribution begin and where does it end? What decisions did you actually make, and what did the technology contribute? What blind spots or biases are inherent in AI today?

Those are interesting questions for an art classroom because they get at ideas we’ve always talked about: intentionality, decision-making, and what it means to be an artist or have a creative voice.

That’s the thinking behind a couple of FLEX lessons included in the digital art curriculum. AI and Authorship is a new lesson in FLEX and Digital Art One. Rather than simply teaching students what AI is or how to use an AI image generator, the lesson asks them to compare human-generated art and AI-generated art. Students think critically about technology, authorship, originality, and their role as artists.

A follow-up lesson, Deepfake Dilemmas, is included in Digital Art Two. It takes the conversation in another direction. Students look at the implications of AI-generated and manipulated images—the kinds of images we’re all encountering—and begin thinking about trust, misinformation, messaging, visual culture, and how easily images can shape what we believe.

I don’t think the idea is for art teachers to tell students that AI is inherently good or bad. It’s about giving students the tools to think critically, make informed choices, and understand the responsibilities that come with creating and sharing images in a world where technology can generate and manipulate them so easily.

Digital literacy isn’t just knowing how to operate a tool. It’s knowing how to question it. Who created this? How was it created? What information was used? What status quo is being supported? Who might be affected? Who has something to gain, and who has something to lose? Can I trust what I’m seeing?

I think those conversations are important because the bigger goal of digital art education isn’t just preparing students to use the technology that exists. It’s helping them become more thoughtful, creative, and critical users of whatever comes next.

Technology will continue to change. We don’t know what’s beyond the horizon, but we do know that creativity and critical thinking will always continue to matter.

Tim: Absolutely. I love how you frame it. I think that gives us a lot to think about, and it gives teachers a strong way to approach these conversations in the classroom.

Many teachers struggle with how to bring up these topics and discuss them with students, so I think this is an excellent framework.

Angela, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and ideas and for coming on to tell us all about these new curricula. We really appreciate it.

Angela Matsuoka: It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Tim.