Infused Classroom: Review of Canva

This week I looked at Holly Clark's blog Infused Classroom and her review of the tool Canva. 

What is Canva?

Canva is a graphic design platform that can bring the posters in your classroom to life and increase student engagement. Through Canva you or your students can use pre-made templates to create posters, presentations, brochures and more! With your creation you can upload pictures, videos and music to customize your work and make it your own. The work you create on Canva can be shared to both Google and Microsoft platforms. 



Can I use Canva in the classroom? 

The first thought I had when reading Clark's blog about Canva was is this worth it? I currently do not spend a lot of time creating posters or anchor charts in my room because I create so many different ones throughout the week. However, after reading more Clark provided many different ways that Canva can be used in the classroom. Her strategies are helpful for not only me but my students as well. 

What I like about Canva is that it has so many pre-made templates to pull from. When navigating through the website I noticed that they have a whole section of templates dedicated to education. One idea that I got form Holly Clark's blog is using Canva to create posters to hook students. I think this idea is genius! My students just started a social studies unit on notable Americans. I can see myself using Canva to create a poster with different notable Americans on it. I can then use the poster to spark discussion and have students make predictions on what our new unit will be about. Hooking students at the start can increase engagement and participation which can spill over into the rest of the unit! Additionally, when browsing the education templates I saw really cute name tag templates. I typically buy cheap ones at Target.. however they still cost money. Using Canva could help me and other teachers same money on certain items that we buy for our classrooms every year. 

Students can use this tool too! I think my creative kids would LOVE if I introduced this in my classroom. The social studies unit that our class just finished was on different regions in the United States. Students made a paper brochure where they wrote different details on their region and drew text features. The activity could very easily be converted to a Canva activity. I could first model to students how to use this tool and then they independently could create their brochures. I have some students who have ineligible handwriting and it makes assessing their work remotely difficult. Using Canva could fix that issue!

Overall, I am very excited to try out this tool in my room! 

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 24, 2021 at 12:39 PM

    What an awesome way to use Canva! I never thought about using it for posters. We are going to be starting a social studies unit very soon and I was trying to figure out a fun and exciting way to get my kids interested in it, and this would be perfect! Also, the idea of using Canva as a way to differentiate student work is a great idea. I have some kids who would also go above and beyond on this program.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJanuary 25, 2021 at 6:35 PM

    Karissa,

    I think you have a lot of great ideas of ways to incorporate Canva in the classroom. I am definitely going to have to take a look at the pre-made posters especially with students returning to in-person instruction for the first time all year. I also like the idea of having students use it to create posters. My students were recently working on presentations for a state fair project and I think creating posters would be a fun addition to this project. Also, I think teacher leaders could use this tool during PD. -Angela Zurales

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dr. ThomasFebruary 2, 2021 at 9:53 AM

    Of course, you were introduced to this one last week and will have an opportunity to use this week.

    ReplyDelete

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