This article was updated in May 2024.
Canva is one of the best examples of a digital design platform that straddles the line between a professional tool and an easy-to-use learning system.
As such, it is a great way to start teaching students how to use design tools, including the potential to use this same tool at work in the future. Canva is ideal for art and design, and can also be used for projects in technology, geography, history, English, and more. Fundamentally, students can learn to use this tool while learning a specific topic.
Teachers can create classroom posters or create images, graphics, and more, all from this tool, which is packed with helpful guides and templates to work with.
Adding ai to this platform makes it more powerful and useful than ever, as well as a genuinely great way to teach how to use ai in a generative way.
What is Canva?
canva is a graphic design tool that works to simplify the digital design process. As such, an account can be easily created and everything works through a web browser or in the iOS or Android apps.
Canva enables image editing and project-based learning through a simple drag-and-drop interface that works well even for younger students. From group brainstorming working collaboratively to creating individual projects, it has many potential uses in the classroom.
Canva is optimized for Chromebooks, so even the most intensive image-based projects can be handled on most machines, with seamless interaction.
With over 250,000 templates available, getting started and moving forward with a theme is a breeze, even for those new to the platform. Stock photos, videos, and graphics are also available, with hundreds of thousands of options to choose from. All of those numbers go up even more if you pay, but we'll talk about that next.
What's new in Canva?
Canva has been adding ai tools since they became more widely available and has now integrated three powerful ai systems. To generate images or videos, using only text descriptions, there are Magic Media, Dall-E from OpenAI and Image from Google Cloud.
Crucially, this setup also allows you to edit and enhance the generated images, something that is typically not available without coding knowledge and certain tools. All of that should mean that students and teachers can generate completely original images that fit perfectly into whatever they're doing.
How does Canva work?
It's easy to sign up for Canva, whether using an email, Google account, or facebook login. Once you create an account, for free, you can choose whether you will use it as a teacher, student, or anything else. This will tailor the experience to your needs, simplifying your search.
Teaching how to use Canva can be the focus of a lesson that aims to expand the digital skills available to students. But since it's so easy to use, it will probably take very little time. Letting students play with options is how deeper learning and creativity can flourish.
Canva offers many virtual templates so students can work with a design and add their own changes. This allows them to focus on the topic at hand without wasting time and energy starting to use the tool itself.
To make a poster, for example, you'll start by offering templates on the left and then the main image on the right that you can customize. Clicking this will bring up a toolbar with editing options; This reaction while working keeps things minimal and clear at all times.
You can upload your own images and videos, which is ideal when working on a smartphone using the app version. Once completed, you can download the file, share it via many optimized social media options, or send it to a professional printing service to print.
What are the best features of Canva?
Canva is packed with features, but many are specific to education. Before we get into that, it's worth noting that Canva saves automatically. This is a great feature for both teachers and students as it means they will never have to worry about losing work, something many people have become accustomed to in the Google tools ecosystem.
While templates are great for making any presentation, poster, or image more impactful, there are powerful sub-tools. Chart templates, for example, are a great way to help in math and science classes, as they allow you to show specific results in a clear and attractive visual way.
Canva for Education is a powerful feature of this tool as it allows teachers to set up a virtual classroom, invite students, and have them collaborate on a project. This could be used in the classroom or remotely, with the help of a video chat tool as well. In fact, you can link Zoom and then present the screen to share the slides with the class as you go.
Comment additions are useful with @ options, allowing alerts to be sent to the teacher. This allows students to ask questions about their work as they go, so they can be sure they are on the right track. A good tool that is especially useful in this creative space where students have a lot of freedom and can sometimes feel a little lost, especially when working remotely.
Canva offers useful free online courses to help you learn. He Canva course for the classroom is a great resource to help teachers learn the best ways to work with the tool.
How much does Canva cost?
Canva can be used for free both in person and in the classroom. While it offers a wealth of tools and features, there are more that can be accessed with a paid Canva Pro or Enterprise account.
Free Canva It gives you 250,000+ templates, 100+ layout types, hundreds of thousands of photos and graphics, collaboration, and 5GB of cloud storage.
CanvaPro is loaded in $119.99 per yearwhich offers all free features but has branded kit upload options, One-click Magic Resize for images, 420,000+ templates, 75 million images, videos and graphics, saving designs for team use, 100 GB cloud storage and social media programming. for seven platforms.
Canva Company is $30 per person per month and offers everything Pro has plus more brand-focused tools that probably aren't useful in teaching. Do you want to know more? See the breakdown here.
Top Canva Tips and Tricks
Plan lessons
Use Canva to visually design the lesson for you as the teacher, but also to share it with students so they know what to expect and can plan accordingly.
Create student profiles
Have students create learning portfolios so they can see how they progress throughout the year; This can also be a valuable review and revision tool.
To collaborate
With up to 10 members on a project, have groups of students work together, in class and digitally from home, to create finished work.
graphics charts
Ideal for math and science, Canva can be used to display data in comprehensive charts and graphs to make presenting experiments and more visually appealing.
To share your comments and ideas about this article, consider joining our tech-learning/tech-learning-public-invitation/” data-url=”https://k12leaders.com/tech-learning/tech-learning-public-invitation/” target=”_blank” referrerpolicy=”no-referrer-when-downgrade” data-hl-processed=”none”>Online technology and learning community.
