Tech Tool Review: Canva

 

What is it?

Canva is a design website where you can create all sorts of different things such as flyers, posters, infographics, presentations, work resumes, lesson plans, and much, much more! It has a lot of design options and templates that you can customize to however you'd like. Recently, there has been AI features added to it where it will create something that you suggest. 

Pros:

• the designs that are customizable. 
• I don't have to start my projects from scratch.
• It's user friendly.
• Can create something beautiful in a short amount of time.
• I can re-size my project easily.
• Ex: Changing a flyer to poster size
• Free--can also get free pro account if you work in a school.

Cons:

• not as many editing features that I'm used to from Microsoft Word.
• Ex: Words in each text box are edited rather than being able to just edit a sentence or a few words within the text box.
• I end up having too many text boxes on one project.

Overall: 

I love using Canva for my projects because I don't get hung up on the design aspect. I've used Canva a few times in the library I work for because I've had to make some signs, handouts, and posters. The posters I created for my Book Fest event were a huge hit with teachers and students. In fact, teachers now come to me to help with creating posters for their classrooms. This has helped strengthen my relationships with the teachers. Pictures of the posters I used for Book Fest are below. 

Students can also easily use Canva during library classes by creating presentations or flyers after conducting research. Canva saves all of their work and students can easily come back to what their working on. In the schools I work for, I know that students are already using Canva in their main content classrooms.

I highly recommend to use Canva!