You Can Do That With Canva?

 

@LisaBerghoff

The finish line is in sight and we are tired, fatigued, exhausted from the race. But we also see that the days are getting longer, the tulips have bloomed, and summer is around the corner. Is this the time to slow down or even stop? Absolutely not. This is the time to reenergize for the final push. This is a wonderful time to tap into your creative side and even try something new. Canva has been taking the business and educational worlds by storm and they are certainly not showing any signs of stopping. There is so much you can do with Canva and I know it can feel overwhelming. Here are five new-ish and simple things that I bet you didn't know you could do.  I hope you will give these a try with your students. They deserve a spark of creativity too.

1. Canva Whiteboard Sticky Notes Sorting

Canva has a wonderful whiteboard feature with lots of templates. You can also just start with a completely blank slate. (RIP Jamboard). The new feature is that you can select and sort sticky notes on your whiteboard. Choose your sorting preference by name, color, or topic.

How To Do It: 

• From Canva's homepage choose whiteboard and choose a blank or a specific type. You will then see many templates to choose from. You can search for a specific type, like "mind map". 
• Add sticky notes from the Elements menu on the left. You can make this collaborative by having teams of thinkers on the same whiteboard.
• Click and drag to highlight the sticky notes and choose Sort. Pick how you want the notes sorted and let Canva do the rest.

2. Tell A Data Story With Animation

Canva's newest animation- Bar Chart Race, effortlessly turns data into beautiful animated visualizations that vividly illustrate data changes. 

How To Do It:

• From your Canva project choose Bar Chart Race from the Elements menu on the left.
• Click to add or upload your data.
• Configure your labels, values, and more in the Settings tab.
• Click to play and view your animated data story. 

3. Convert Your Canva Doc Into A Presentation 

OR A Website With One Click

When creating a presentation or website, it's a good idea to get all of your content down before you go down the design rabbit hole. Canva allows you to take your text and easily convert it from a doc to a presentation. You can also publish your doc to the web and instantly create a website. This could be a wonderful option if you are sharing and don't want your recipients to be forced to log in to Canva.

How To Do It:

• From your Canva homescreen choose docs and generate your content.
• Click the Convert button and choose your presentation layout.
• To create a website, click the Share button and choose Website. 

4. Extract Audio From Your Videos

There has been some disappointment in the Canva video editor. It is not as robust as we would like. In the age of creating massive amounts of video content, we want to be able to do a lot. The folks at Canva seem to be working on it. You now have the ability to extract the audio from your video files. This can be a great way to use voice over content, split audio, or incorporate b-roll. Tell your students about this capability and I am guessing they will come up with lots of uses for it.

How To Do It:

• From the Canva homescreen choose video.
• Upload your video content.
• Right click on the video viewer and choose Extract Audio. The audio waveform will appear below the video. You can then enlarge the thumbnail to get more granular with the editing.

5. Utilize Apps Within Canva

When I am doing a mini lesson using Canva in your classes, I always love when there are a handful of students who just take it and run with it. They often create something so unique that they are really proud and want to show how they did it. One hundred percent of the time when this happens, they have discovered and used an app within Canva. I know, Canva itself is amazing, but just think about the possibilities when you can incorporate YouTube, Google Drive, AI talking characters, and more.

How To Do It:

• From the Canva homescreen choose what you want to create.
• From the left toolbar, choose Apps.
• There are featured apps, trending apps, more from Canva, AI powered apps, apps to automatically add subtitles, and more. 
• Once you use an app, it will appear in the Your Apps tab.

Note: Some apps are freemium.

I have used apps within Canva to embed YouTube videos, animate images, import from Google Drive, 

Here is one that automatically colorizes black and white photos. 

What are some things you do with Canva that would surprise us? Which of these are you ready to try? Let me know. I would love to help you get started.