Canva Creations

After reading Online Creation Tools and Take 5, I decided to try out Canva. I liked the sound of Canva because Karen said it had free items and several poster or meme possibilities! In my room I like to create these different visuals, so I thought it might be the most useful.

When I started using it, I was a little let down by the “free” options. There weren’t as many as I had hoped and they weren’t as cute as I imagined.  They don’t seem to have many good, free templates.  Under the “Elements” tab, my ideas changed.  They have TONS of free, cute little pictures to use.  I actually wasn’t sure what I would include in my graphic until I saw the different little pictures that I liked and felt that I could tie into my cooking/baking experience.

The challenging part of Canva is that only certain things are free, so you have to be careful with what you choose.  I also read some comments that mentioned how the graphics print out differently than they appear on screen as well as it apparently has other glitches at times.  I didn’t print my picture and I didn’t have any real issues (other than operator errors) while I was experimenting with it!

Fortunately, Canva seems rather easy to use.  I was actually able to create my poster rather quickly.  The time consuming part was scrolling through the options to find what I wanted to incorporate.  You just click on what you like and it drops it onto your page. You then can make size changes, and sometimes color edits.  I had an easy time playing with it!

I imagine myself using Canva in the future for several different things. I could create posters for the information being covered in class or for the book we are about to read.  There are many possibilities! I like that it allows you to upload your own pictures so I could really personalize it!

As a visual learner, I absolutely think there is value in presenting information in a visual or graphic style. As a teacher, I think it also allows me the freedom to decorate my room in a visually pleasing way that also adds to the information present in my classroom.  Useful posters are the best so that students can refer to them instead of asking me all the time!

I created my visual as a kind of magazine cover.  I found each little graphic in the free folder and then I wrote a little “article” heading to go with it that ties into what I’ve learned or done over these past few weeks with my Independent Learning Project.