Just How important are Internet Resources for the Arts?

As i sit here pondering how to begin this post, I look at my tittle and can't help but laugh to myself a little bit. Just how important are internet resources for the arts in education? I laugh because they are, at this point anyway, the most widely used resources on the planet. In fact, internet resources are so widely used by the arts community that I would say the question should be: Why has the internet become the most important resource for the arts? The answer to this question is simple. The internet provides resources for Arts teachers in a quick, easy, cheap, and easily shared way. Obviously in the day and age we live in, internet resources are not just important for Arts education, but for every person who now lives on this planet. Which brings me back to my first post in this blog where I talked about how the Arts, throughout history, have always been a reflection of the environment and time in which they are in. Therefore it is the same with the use of internet resources. The entire world around us is tapped into the internet on a daily basis looking at news, stocks, social networking, and yes reading journal articles rather for entertainment or for professional reasons. The internet has become our single most important resource for information there is.
Earlier today I was reading a article that was written by a group called ARTSEDGE. This group is associated with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The name of this article was appropriately called: Weaving a Future for the Arts in Education Through Technology
This article, which is now over ten years old, discusses how interactive networking technologies are going to change the face of Arts education in three different ways. First, by creating a place where ideas could be shared rapidly. Second, greater access to Arts materials and artifacts. Third, the ability to use Arts applications that allow students to create artifacts and collaborate on those artifacts with students from around the globe. I found this article to be very interesting especially because of when it was written. Ten years ago the Arts Educational community was already predicting what has now come to pass. The internet has become the place or people to share Arts educational ideas and philosophies. Take this blog for example. There are thousands of highly qualified professionals who blog about educational ideas all over the globe now. Creating a network of professional guidance on virtually any subject involving the Arts community. We also now have access to Arts artifacts on a seriously amazing level with the creation of sights like Youtube for example. I was teaching a trumpet lesson to a student the other day and was trying to explain the concept of Miles Davis' use of space in his playing. I was struggling to explain this the way that I wanted to and all of a sudden it hit me..... Let's let my student watch a live performance of him right now. After we watched the video together, which by the way took all of thirty seconds to find, I realized that as teachers we are living in a truly amazing time for education. So much information is available quite literally at our fingertips. We also have new applications that allow our students to create their own artifacts and collaborate with other students in creating them. One example might be garageband. I have personally had students who created a musical loop on Garageband, converted it to a Mp3, and email it to a friend who took the mp3, put it in Logic Pro and then laid down vocals on the loop, and email a final product to me. Now that's technology working along with the Arts to create something that would not have been possible ten years ago. The crazy thing about that scenario is that one of my students didn't know how to do it so they went home looked up a video tutorial on Youtube on how to create a mp3 in garageband. Just how important are internet resources for the Arts? This may be the biggest no brainer ever!