Hi everyone !!

Welcome to the second week of my journey of learning how to use Canva!

This week, I decided to explore the educational side of TikTok by simply searching “canva tips and tricks”

This was the first video I stumbled upon and it instantly brought so much joy!

@joyfulnoiseteaching

This Canva tip is going to be such a time saver ⏰ #canva #canvatips #canvatutorial #graphicdesign #techtip

♬ original sound – Emily

As someone who is VERY picky about colors and aesthetics, I will absolutely be applying this video to my future creations!

Let’s go through an example of how to do this together:

Take any image you’d like:

Then choose any color palette you’d like (from google) OR the Canva Color Pallete Website

Let’s take this neutral palette for example!

Simply copy and paste the image into Canva anywhere ONTOP of your original image.

You can then right click the palette image, select “apply colors to image” and BOOM – you’ve got this gorgeous look:

After finding this trick, I continued exploring  “All Day April” on TikTok & found a couple more helpful tips:

• Since you want to be wandering about your classroom while teaching your lessons rather than being tied to your computer (obviously) she shares how to use your phone as the remote to control for your presentation slides by scanning the QR code connected to your slideshow. This allows you to go from slide to slide, and use the magic shortcuts such as (curtain calls, the “shhh” emoji telling students to be quiet, and confetti).
• She shows you how to take old pdf’s and insert them directly into Canva – this way if you are using some older material you’ve taught or a lesson/worksheet you’ve gotten from a coworker or online, you are able to make it your own very simply. You can switch up the fonts, colors, and formatting as you please.

I will absolutely be revisiting her page for future content and hacks!

I then explored another YouTube video called “5 Canva Hacks for Teachers” from an account I called Pocketful of Primary.

My favourite new hack I learned was using AI Integration with the Magic Write tool – which is very similar to ChatGPT! (9:50 in the video). This option is available when using the Doc or Presentation format.

The process is as follows:

• Select the create a design tab
  • Open a Presentation or Doc
    • Click the circle in the bottom left corner with the stars and type in “magic write” to select the tool

• • • You can then type in exactly what it is you are looking to create.
    • In her example she uses: “Write a permission slip for a fourth grade field trip to the Museum of Natural History”.

• • • It will then generate an outlined permission slip for you to edit and use as you please.

This is just another example of how to be extra efficient when creating the necessary forms, slips, letters, and other materials needed on a frequent basis!

Another secret to using this tool is to actually have it write your lesson plans for you with the given topic and time frame you have … more on this later 🙂

The thing I love most about learning from platforms like YouTube and TikTok, is how easy it is to find the videos and how quickly you can learn an entirely new skill! I find it very easy to make sense of this type of content because you can pause the video in order to follow it step by step yourself as you go. Whether you are simply looking to expand your knowledge more generally, or are looking for how to do something specific, both of these platforms can reliably help you find the answer to the question you have! The beauty of both of these resources is that they can be accessed by anyone and anytime, and their videos give a nice demonstration of exactly how you navigate the tools you are aiming to use.