Part 3: Canva Design School!

This week, I discovered maybe the best resource so far – I wish I had found it even sooner!

Canva itself actually has a “Design School” with a course called TEACHER ESSENTIALS !!

I don’t think there’s a better place to learn about Canva than Canva itself… lol

Let’s dive right into it …

Kickstart Lesson Planning:

  • STEP 1: OPEN CANVA & SELECT TEMPLATES FROM THE LEFT MENU BAR

  • STEP 2: BROWSE THE RANGE OF RESOURCES SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR TEACHERS
  • I created this video with the help of Screencastify which allowed me to show my screen while recording my voice so I could talk you through exactly what I was doing.
  • I then clipped my recordings in the editor and saved the entire video as an mp4.
  • After that, I opened YouTube and selected the “Create” button that looks like a video camera with a +.
    • I then selected “upload video” and dragged my mp4 into the box.
    • It then chose to allow only users with the link to have access to viewing rather than making my video public.
  • STEP 3: CHOOSE YOUR LESSON PLAN
    • I have provided examples from Grade’s 3 & 8 in the video below for different types of math lessons and worksheets!
  • STEP 4: EDIT & TAILOR THE DESIGN TO MEET YOUR NEEDS/PREFERENCES
    • In this video, I show you how to change color schemes, add elements, and make the presentation your own!
    • As a trick, you can visit Canva Color Palettes and find the one you like best!
  • The fonts I mentioned were from this TikTok:
@gyladigitals

Did you know that Canva has SECRET FONTS? I’ve rounded up some unique ones that you can use for your next project. Check out this list below: 1. Magazine letters 2. Pink Bubble Gum 3. Neon letters 4. Fluffy letters 5. Bamboo alphabet letters 6. Ice Cream Cone letters 7. @Cocomomo 8. Set:nAFENR3S-dk 9. Tropical letter watercolor illustration Try them out and let me know what you think. 🤗 If you also know some secret Canva fonts, share them in comments section. 🌻 #canva #tipsandhacks #canvasecretfonts #fonts #canvatips #canvahacks #digitalproducts #digitalproductseller #graphicdesign #canvacreator

♬ Shake It Off – Platinum Party

  • Next week, I will continue using Canva Design School to show you how to edit lessons you’ve previously created outside of Canva (as pdfs, jpegs, etc.) to enhance their design!

I really enjoyed my learning process on Canva this week, the videos were easy to follow along with, the steps were descriptive and specific. They also did a great job of explaining when and why you may want to use these resources.

I also found my process of using Screencastify to be quite simple and super helpful in my explanation of how to access the resources I was trying to describe. In many ways, it’s easier to just say and show you how to do it rather than try to type and explain it! It provides a very basic way to make a simple video of your computer. It also allows the option for you to have your camera on but I chose not to for the purpose of this video. It also allows you to crop your screen so your frame to capture only the necessary parts you’d like to share. This allows you to hide your top toolbar and the tabs opened up top without having to close anything out. For my next video creation, I would like to add music and possibly some effects so I think I will try to create a TikTok instead!

Part 2: Canva Tips and Tricks

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.

 

 

 

Me + Tech = Love/Hate Relationship

Soooo … when I think about my relationship with tech, it reminds me of my younger years when tech played a very simple role in my life. Starting with TV when I was a kid watching things like cartoons and Family Channel, it was often a point of connection with my family when we’d all sit together and laugh at what we were watching.

As I got older, and further into elementary school, I got my first mp3 player. It only had about 12 songs on it that would play over and over but I absolutely loved it. I would listen to them over and over, never getting sick of the same songs. Anytime I hear one of those songs now, it still reminds me of those moments on the bus or in my bedroom singing and dancing along.

When I got a bit older, I got my mom’s old Samsung cellphone that was a snazzy red and white combo with a keyboard that slid out. My friends and I would text all the time, and it was very fun.

A few years later when Snapchat and Instagram hit the scene, everyone started getting iPhone’s. Most people would post funny pictures of themselves or different kinds of meme’s they found funny. Fast forward to now, where many people are using all these different social media platforms as their own personal “blog” and also a source of income/as their career.

For me personally, I’m heavier on the consumer side of the scale vs the posting side. To be completely honest, I know social media gets a bad wrap and there are absolutely a million negative things you could say about it. But for me, I enjoy seeing what others are up to. It’s an indirect way of connecting but also staying in the loop! There are people I haven’t seen since high school that I follow, but you never know when you may run into them! I think it’s nice to know what’s going on in their life so you are able to ask them about it when you see them.

A great deal of my time is also spent on my laptop focusing on school work. Somedays, it’s a battle to get it open. But once I do, I find I can get into a flow pretty easily. The hardest part for me is actually STARTING. I remember when COVID hit I was midway through my psychology degree. We ended up finishing it all online and to be honest I loved having my own time to get through the material at a quicker pace and being able to watch the zoom lectures back to make sure I didn’t miss any information the first time through the lecture. I found that I was able to manage my time well, and that I had a lot more free time to do other things I enjoyed like going to the gym and outside for walks. It also helped that my brother was starting his degree at the same time from home so we helped keep each other accountable but would also do something together outside of the house each day!

Currently, I am relying on the Outlook app a lot for all of my scheduling as well as having access to my school email on the tab beside. This makes it highly efficient and easy to add things into your calendar and make sure you are staying up to date with all the course information and questions you may have for your peers or profs in the same place. The other part of the outlook app I use is the To Do List – it helps me keep track of all the other little things I need to get done and not have so much to keep track of inside my brain. Outside of this, I use Microsoft Word for most of my note-taking and open PowerPoints for school purposes. I am now adding Canva to my repetoire as one of my main sources of tech. So far I have been using Youtube and TikTok to help me learn more about it!

In order to maintain a level of balance between academic and personal tech-use I have limited myself to half an hour on social media each day using the screen time option in settings. Although you have the ability to override this, it comes with a lot more guilt that usually isn’t worth the extra scroll, LOL!

After I have spent that long consuming information that isn’t particularly necessary, I realize it’s time to switch to something more productive. There is ALWAYS something that could be done school wise that could help me improve my grades, get ahead of the game, or even just ask questions to ensure I am on the right track with certain assignments. I also have noticed how much better I truly feel when I am using tech for productive purposes rather than just casual consumption or scrolling. Academically, I am actually using my brain and being creative while having to think. On the personal note …. not so much – in fact it may even lead to negative or overthinking … which isn’t great either.