Canva

Website Link: https://www.canva.com/

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Full Description

Canva is a free website and mobile app that lets

users create high-quality graphics with a simple

drag-and-drop interface. Users can choose from

various templates, images, fonts, and elements to

suit different purposes and platforms. For

example, instructors can give a lab assignment by

providing a quick overview of the lab activity

via Canva presentation or video, and then students

can start working. Canva enables users to express their creativity and deliver effective messages through their designs. Canva can also be used in the classroom to teach students how to design graphics for various media and audiences, which can enhance their career prospects.

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Classroom Implementation & Educational Rationale

Science is the study of nature and the environment.

Observation of the environment and collecting of data

or evidence from nature are important ways for students

to learn about science. However, experiential learning

like field trips is not always available for our students.

But there are tools there for us to use to describe what

we have seen, touched, or heard from the natural

environment. For example, I can have science students record and edit the video of their interaction with the environment for the Grade 7 Ecosystem lesson. They can identify biotic factors, abiotic factors, and different types of interaction in the environment that they recorded and incorporated their presentations, words, and images into the Canva Video presentation as a group project to evaluate various ways of mitigating the negative and enhancing the positive impact of human activities on the environment in the video and share their discoveries, their cool ideas or wonderful presentations with everyone.

Having a class like this promotes effective learning in many ways:

• Having students design and present their own videos can enhance students’ creativity and communication skills.

• Using visual and auditory aids can improve their understanding and retention of science concepts.

• Making learning fun and interactive can increase their engagement and motivation.

• Working in groups and sharing their videos with others can foster their collaboration and feedback skills.

 

Connections to Research

Canva (n.d.) suggests that using their tool in the classroom can help students learn graphic design skills and improve their career opportunities.

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Canva for Education offers a wide range of interesting features that make it a great design platform to use in your teaching. Both you and your students can start creating beautiful design work without the need for advanced graphic design knowledge (Kharbach, 2023).

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One qualitative descriptive study sought to describe students’ views on using Canva, They described Canva as an all-in-one tool for creativity and collaboration (Pedroso, 2023). 

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Reference

Canva. (n.d.). Try Canva for Education for free. Retrieved December 21, 2021, from http://www.canva.com/education/

Kharbach, M. (2023). Canva for education- Full teacher review. Educatorstechnology.com

Pedroso, J. E. P. (2023). Students’ views on using Canva as an all-in-one tool for creativity and collaboration. Journal of Digital Learning and Distance Education, 2(2), 443-461.