Using Canva in eLearning

Canva is perhaps one of the most utilized, and least talked about resources available for educators. It is commonly used to create social media posts, however, there are endless templates for flyers, presentations, websites, videos, business cards, and more.  This is going to be a web app that you'll never be able to put down.

You can use resources such as Adobe, but Canva allows you to store all your designs, as well as any lesson plans, on the site itself. You can create downloadables for your students and record any lessons. Because of this versatility, Canva must be in your toolbox.

Creating Downloadables

Downloadables are 100% necessary for any e-course. Fortunately, with Canva they are easy to make. While Canva may not have every template for every handout idea or downloadable idea, there are several templates that you can use to help start the process. Just like lessons, downloadables need to be thought out, planned, and edited to fit the needs of your students.

Writing Lessons

Writing out lessons on Canva allows you to store them all in one place.  Even though it is easy to use a Word doc to write out a basic lesson plan, it's important to have fun with the construction of your course. This is why I have used Canva to make my lesson plan template.

Lesson Thumbnails

Depending on what course hosting website you use, there is the possibility that you need to have lesson thumbnails. Canva allows you to preset the dimensions of a project to fit any requirements for thumbnails. This can be done by clicking create new design and selecting custom dimensions.

The handy thing about Canva, is that you can open multiple projects to copy and paste designs between them. If you already have your marketing set up and brand ready to go, this will make it easy to design a lesson thumbnail that is unified with your personal brand.

PowerPoints

Say goodbye to boring PowerPoints! Canva works very much like Microsoft PowerPoint with a Prezi twist. You can create transitions, moving parts, and more when working on a presentation. There are so many options that at times, it can be a little overwhelming, but the Canva help guides are easy-to-follow. Yet again, Canva has plenty of templates that you can use to get started.

Resources

Defining a resource is a little difficult. A resource can truly be anything that helps the students understand what you're trying to teach them. Resources can be quickly and easily made in Canva. When you take my course (Elevate to eCourse), we discuss setting up an e-learning environment, and you will see how many resources we have made with Canva. 

From strategies to checklists, resources are going to be very important for your students. Thankfully, Canva will also save those designs, and you can download projects as several different file types. I suggest using the professional PDF version. It has a much crisper look!

Now that you know how to use Canva for eLearning, it's time to put it into practice.

Or you can get the pro version which unlocks several different animations, elements, and even plenty of images. I highly recommend the pro version because it is not that expensive, and then you have a wonderful resource that you can continuously use for all parts of life.

[Click Here to get started on Canva]

Implementation: take some time to design a new handout. How did this handout work for your students? Be sure to let us know!