Canva

by Amanda Trigiani

Canva is an exciting tool because of its infinite potential. It is an easy to use graphic design app and website that allows the maker to create original products or edit ready-made design templates.

The drag-and-drop format is used to design one of numerous product options including posters, infographics, logos, presentations, book covers, blog designs, comic strips, menus, and invoices… to name a few! The app offers thousands of free templates (as well as paid ones), 500+ font options, and a number of customizable features including sizes, spaces, positions, and colours. The designs can be web or print as well as easily shared on the app, or directly to Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, email or saved onto a device.

The interdisciplinary potential of this app is exciting! The Canva website offers suggestions for teachers, non-profits, students, designers, photographers, and businesses. Design tips are also provided @canva on Instagram and Facebook; I checked them out and they are incredibly useful and inspiring. Also, you (and/or your students, children, teammates, or employees) can share your designs with the hashtag #canvalove.

Educators! This app allows you to create resources for your classrooms, such as inspiring posters, class rules, or even a course calendar. More importantly, Canva is a powerful teaching and learning tool; the app provides opportunity for creative pedagogical approaches and assessment methods by emphasizing design thinking.

  • Students can synthesize and display their interdisciplinary knowledge when asked to:
  • Create an infographic about a research topic (e.g. stats on climate change)
  • Make a graph or mind map to organize ideas, sort data, or detail a process (e.g. food chain)
  • Develop a comic about a concept or figure (e.g. Marie Curie)
  • Design a book cover to a book they wrote about course concepts (e.g. space systems)
  • Create a poster detailing steps or statistics (e.g. steps of an experiment)
  • Produce an advertisement to ‘sell’ creations (even learning about and using ‘pseudoscience’)

Canva really puts the A in STEAM through the common thread of design, innovation, and the ability to make the world.

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