I love Google Drawing! (Wait, isn’t this titled Canva for EDU???) Yes, yes it is, but there is a reason I started with I love Google Drawing. I have always used Google Drawing to create my templates and images, and so many other things and I didn’t really give Canva a fair shake. Well, it’s a game changer. It’s so easy to customize and share with others. So for the next few weeks, I want to introduce you to a few features you may not know about.
When you login to Canva, on the left you will can select templates.
Templates
Canva is free for educators and allows you to access all of the features.
Once you click on templates, you can select by subject (on the right) or by category (on the left)
Presentations
There are so many presentation templates to choose from. You can sort by topic or you can pick a design you like and adapt it. The best part about Canva, in my opinion, is the download feature. Once you design what you want, you can download into Google Slides or PowerPoint. You can also edit once download it.
To download to Google Slides click the share button, then go to more.
Scroll down to save, and select Google Drive or PowerPoint.
Not all the other options. You can save to Google Classroom, but under more you can also share to other LMS sites.
You can also just present through Canva.
You can adjust the colors and theme for any presentation you select. The brown in the original presentation was not what I wanted but I loved the graph paper so I clicked on styles. You can select from one that is there, or you can create your own. If you have colors you use all the time, you can set up your own theme to use. The last one shown below is from my Make Math Not Suck color theme.
You can also change any elements you don’t like. For instance, the weird little shrub at the top is not working for me, so I can change it to any other element I would like.
FlashCards
Another template to explore is flashcards. I searched for math flashcards but you can also just click on flashcards in the education section. These are designed to be printed and cut out, but you an also use them in a presentation and make a digital flashcard.
Phone Wallpaper
Here is a fun idea to create contact information for your phone. Here are a few templates I have created that you can make a copy of (another great feature of Canva). You can use the QR code creator in Canva (example 1 & 3) or use one like QR-code-monkey.com like the middle one.
I will be posting ideas in the coming weeks so check back often.
Infinitely Teaching 