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I bet you didn't know you can do THIS in Canva

Updated: Jun 6, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of the Edumagic podcast. This episode is brought to you by my TPT store, where you can find resources to help you during your college career as an education major. Today's episode is titled a few things you might not know that you can do in canva. In this episode, we will check some of my favorite features of Canva for Edu, which include canva presentations, worksheets, infographics, and a QR code creator.


So first and foremost, let's head on over to canva.com, and you can create an educator account.


Back in 2014, when I first started teaching, I was looking for a poster creation tool online. My colleague Brittany Groff showed me Canva. There's so much you can do here. When I got into Canva more deeply that semester, I found there's a lot you can do within it, from creating posts for social media to designing flyers and infographics.


If you're a practicing teacher, if you go to Canva for education, you can create a free educator account. It is phenomenal. You can see with Canva for EDU. You can have

  • assignments

  • a class with classwork

  • plan out your content

  • it includes a lot of different templates just for teachers

So I will walk you through a few of my favorite options here within Canva.


Presentations

  • Designing your presentations is already done. All you have to do is worry about adding in your content.

  • Add each slide individually

  • Or you can add all of them

  • Add in your elements like shapes and graphics, photos, and videos.

  • You can search with the search feature and filter out content.

  • Change up the background of the design.

QR codes

So instead of going to a QR code creator, downloading the QR code image, and uploading it here into Canva, you can click on QR in Canva. To create a QR code in canva:

  • Select the QR code on the left side

  • Type in your favorite website

  • Click generate code

Now we have a code that goes to our favorite website.


Character creation

You can also create and customize the character. This feature could be a neat project for students to develop their characters in a book they wrote. Or create a historical figure using these characters. You can customize

  • clothes

  • facial expression

  • skin tone

  • hair color

Create an infographic in Canva

So instead of reading a research article and then writing a paper on it, I have my students read the research article and then create an infographic. They can download their infographic as a JPEG or PNG as a PDF. If they have any movie elements on their infographic, they can download them as MP4.


You can start from scratch or create from a template. Then edit the design as you see fit with charts, graphics, and graphs. You can also edit the text in the infographic to make it your own.


Create digital portfolio headers

My students started using Google classroom headers for their digital portfolio headers. So they customize the content, the text, and some of the backgrounds. Then they downloaded it and uploaded it as a header image into Weebly or Wix.


Instead of just thinking, that's just for Google classroom. You can use it for your digital portfolio, making some excellent visuals for your projects.


Canva for worksheets

You can edit the worksheet for your own needs. Create a canva worksheet and print them or use them in a PDF editor of your choice. Then you can have students interact with the worksheet digital using tools like

  • TeacherMade

  • Class Kick

  • Wizer

These three tools allow them to complete the worksheet online with accessibility built right in. You can also set up the tools to auto-grade a few pieces, saving your teacher time.


Lesson plan at a glance one-sheet

Every teacher needs a good lesson plan template, and canva has you covered. Once you write your entire lesson plan in whatever format that your university or school requires, pull that content from your lesson plan and put it in a lesson plan at a glance. This option will help you save time by not having to flip through your whole binder. Instead, you can just easily look at the lesson plan at a glance.

You can download that as a PDF uploaded into OneNote, edit it there or print them out.


Canva Presentations

You can now present in Canva. There a several options

  • The current presentation mode is where you are just showing the screen of slides.

  • Presenter view - present your presentation with a view of our note.

  • Present and record - create an asynchronous piece or video that you can use with your students.

  • Present live - This gives students a link to join with a code. They can add in a chat with text and emojis. This feature is a fun way to see how students are doing with the content. They can give a thumbs up or heart emoji on the screen. Students can also write their responses on canva live.

  • Magical shortcuts - 0-9 numbers provide a countdown timer, b - blur the screen, q- quiet symbol, d-drumroll, o- bubbles.


Additional features of Canva edu

  • Group work - anyone can edit the canva project

  • Agendas / Planners

  • Flyers

The sky is the limit when it comes to Canva for education. I encourage you to check it out and see what you and your students create. If you have been using it for flyers, it is much more than that. Share your ideas for Canva below.


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