Canva: Creating Stunning Visual For Your Classroom

As a teacher, unless you have the skills of using editing software, it takes efforts to make your class presentation or blog visually attractive. If you ever heard about Canva you shouldn't be worried too much about this. Canva is an online and ipad app design platform that allows you to create graphic easily. So, if you are looking for a tool to help you bring the magical power of visual to your class, Canva is definitely the answer.

How do we start?

To use Canva, you have to first sign up either using your email address or simply links your facebook or google account. Once you logged in, you can start making your design by following instructions provided by Canva. Take a look at the video below to help you start your first project with Canva.

 

What does it do?

Design: Canva allows you to create design in many kinds of template. From making posters for your class, social media posts, picture collages or something professional like your presentation or letters.

Share: Share your design by downloading it as PDF, JPEG or PNG. You can also share your design using an URL provided.

Collaborate: Share your design and let your students view or edit the design.

Make a group: Let your students work in group and make class project easier.

What are the benefits for your teaching?

• Creates a visual-based learning: Visuals help to make students recollect new information better. Create visual using Canva to give presentation, to give clue about upcoming unit or to build students' schemata during the pre-lesson activity. 
• Accommodates different learning style: According to Gardner's multiple intelligences (1985), visual learners will learn best through seeing pictures, graph and other visuals.
• Facilitates collaboration: Canva can facilitate group project. Students can work together with another student by using the sharing option in Canva.
• Enhances creativity: Canva can be a great place for students to think and put their idea into visual form. For example, students can share meaningful experiences such as creating their own poster or presentation using Canva.

What are the limitations?

• Simplicity: It is actually good for users since Canva has features that are really easy to use, somehow it also means that the features are really minimal. Features such as adding sound, video or animations are unavailable.
• 30 slides: Canva has a maximum of 30 slides per design.
• Students' focus: Design can be tricky when students put too many texts and there is no enough space, teachers should encourage them to really focus on what information they want to share.

Tips  

• When your presentation slides reach the maximum 30 pages, create another design and merge them upon download.
• Upgrade to Canva for Work to access every features in Canva.
• If you cannot find a particular free image in Canva, search on pixabay.com and upload it to Canva afterwards. 
• Get some inspiration from Canva lesson plans here.
• Check this video for here to know more about how to use Canva in classroom.
• Click here for more tutorials.

Gardner, H. (1985). Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences.

Quizlet: Making Your Class Livelier Through Digital Flashcards

We all want apps that are simple, innovative and engaging. Quizlet is one of them. It’s a web and mobile app that provides endless possibilities to create and share flashcards and quizzes. This simple tool can help teaching vocabulary livelier since it specially designed for words development. It has support features such as games, sharing options, visual and auditory. This tool is not only limited for teachers use, but students can also use this tool to learn vocabulary.

How do we start?

 

All you have to do is go to quizlet.com then you can log in using your Google or Facebook account so you can easily share your records with friends, but if you prefer not to do this, you still can use your email address to create a new account. Next, there are basically two things you can do when you already logged in. First, you can create your own sets of vocabulary. Second, you can use the search bar, enter any keywords and from there you will find many sets of words created by other users. It's pretty simple right? To make things clearer, check out this video below on how to begin using Quizlet.

 

What does it do?

 

From the video above, we pretty much know what this simple tool can do:

Creates your own sets of vocabulary

By clicking the create button, you can make sets of flashcards with its definition, pictures and pronunciation of the words.

Searches for available flashcards

The search button will give you access to enormous kinds of flashcards. Surely, it will save your time!

Provides interactive activities to learn vocabulary

 

• Flashcards: Click this button to start studying your cards. Try to use audio and shuffle supports.
• Learn: A quiz for your students to check their vocabulary.
• Spell: A good activity for listening and writing practice.
• Test: Know how much your students have work on their vocabulary. Use 'print test' button to have the printed version of the test.
• Match: A matching game that Quizlet offers. It can be used by students to practice their memory on vocabulary items. This games includes a timer so you can easily record which students finished the task faster.
• Gravity: This survival game will help your students to study their vocabulary as well as their spelling. This game can be set accordingly, based own individuals level (easy, medium, or hard). 
• Live: A group game where students work together to match a set of vocabulary and its definitions.

What are the benefits for your teaching?

• Enhances students’ pronunciation: Since Quizlet provides a text-to-speech capability, students might be exposed to different range of language accents. There is also another option where teachers can also record their own voices to support students practice of the language.
• Enhances students’ autonomy: Quizlet has both mobile app and web version so it is accessible for students to use for learning vocabulary or to quiz themselves at their own pace and time. Students can also create their own sets of flashcards.  
• Incorporates visual: Having images attached to flashcards bring the ideas to life therefore it also helps students to easily connect  to a particular concept. 
• Accommodates different learning styles: Using its audio and images, both auditory and visual learners can gain much from this tool.

  

 What are the limitations? 

• Although Quizlet has a brilliant text-to-speech capability, it is not perfect. Teachers must pay attention on different pronunciation of English words, for example the word ‘wind’ in both noun and verb forms have different pronunciation in which Quizlet may not know which part of speech to pronounce.
• Some flashcards you find through search tool can contain inaccurate information. Make sure to double check.
• In the free version, some of the options are limited use and not all teachers have the budget to afford the upgraded version.

 

Tips

• Go to pixelbay.com to search for free pictures for your flashcards 
• Make your flashcards more interesting using GIF (Graphic Interchange Format). Go to giphy.com to search for available GIFs. 
• Print out the ‘tests’. Try to print out quizzes and let’s see how students perform in non computer generated quiz.