[00:00:00] Today, I'm excited to be talking all about Canva, a tool that has transformed the way many teachers approach, lesson planning and decorating their classroom and even student engagement. Our guest today is Teresa Kwant. She is a former sixth grade teacher turned full-time teacher author, who is passionate about helping educators use Canva to make their teaching more creative and fun.

Theresa has spent the last couple of years teaching. Other teachers, how to maximize canvas potential. And she's here today to share some practical tips, some cool features, and some time-saving hacks that every teacher can benefit from. So whether you're new to Canva or you already use it daily, there's something in this episode adjust for you.

So let's get started.

So welcome. Welcome, Teresa. So glad that you're here on the podcast and that we get to talk to you all about Canva. So let's just start by having you [00:01:00] introduce yourself. Sure. My name, as you said, is Teresa. I taught sixth grade for five years here in Utah. Sixth grade was in elementary school in the district I taught.

So I was teaching in elementary. I then discovered Teachers Pay Teachers and I started venturing in that realm. And I have been a teacher producer now for close to 12 years. And along that journey, I found a tool that I absolutely love. It's called Canva. And I think every teacher needs to hear about it.

So you found Canva more. as an entrepreneur than you did as a teacher, or were you already using it as a teacher? I found it as an entrepreneur. That's where I discovered it. I started using it for my business. Same for me. I'd never heard of Canva when I was still in the classroom, but now I use it every single day as probably a lot of people do.

So I'm going to ask you some questions on [00:02:00] what you think might Be the percentage. So your answers are going to kind of be, I know you don't know exactly, but what you think what percentage of teachers do you think have heard of Canva? Oh man, I don't know. Maybe like 50%. I feel like most people know what Canva is, but that's probably because I use it every day.

Yeah. So in my mind, I'm like, yeah, probably like 95 percent of people have probably heard of it. That's where I go because I just can't imagine not having it. So, Right. Okay, so what percentage do you think are using it? So 50 percent of people have heard of it. Do you think all of those people are using it?

Oh no, I do not think so. I think Less people are using it because they're overwhelmed by it. They know that it's there, but it is an overwhelming tool already stacked on a plate that is full. Well, my next question was going to be what [00:03:00] percentage are using it to its full capability, but like, I already. I use it every single day and I see things in your TikToks and your Instagram showing other things that I did not know and I'm always like blown away that there is just so much to the program that I don't think anyone is using it.

All right, all the ways that they can yet. So I'm so excited to talk to you about all of the different ways I've been watching your Tik TOK series. That is amazing, by the way. All the things, all the ideas that you have and the tips and tricks that you're sharing. So I'm so glad you're on today so that you can share.

A lot of good stuff with us too. So we know that Canva does have a ton of pictures and fonts and cute things. It's great for making a newsletter or a poster or something like that. But there are lots of things that we don't use every day, things that go beyond what you could do in a Google Doc [00:04:00] or, a Word document or something like that.

So what are some cool features that you can do in Canva that you couldn't do in, let's say, Google Docs? I have so many ideas. Like, I don't even know where to begin with this question. But because we're talking about Google Docs, we'll start with stories. I had my own daughters at home draw some characters for me.

on paper and I took a quick photo with it on my phone and we put them in Canva and they were able to animate them and then we wrote stories about those characters and we took photos and elements from Canva to create these stories with what they drew and they just thought that was the coolest activity not even realizing we're practicing storytelling and remembering what we read.

It was really fun. Then I found another feature actually just probably a couple weeks ago. It's called whiteboards. I've never had to use it [00:05:00] for my business. So I didn't really pay attention to it, but whiteboards is great in the classroom. It's like this never ending document, but you can click and drag manipulatives like place value blocks and build numbers.

And here's the kicker. Okay. It's all free for teachers. So here they're using all of these things and you can do all of these grades, lesson plans and activities, and it's free. So anyway, sorry, I just went off. I saw your I think on Instagram, you using that whiteboard.

It reminded me of the old school Prezi, if anyone used that. Because it seemed like you could zoom out as far as you needed to, and then zoom in to kind of narrow in on a product or a problem that you're trying to solve. So that is, so, Cool. I haven't used it ever in business or in, teaching.

And also I didn't know you could do animation. So you're saying [00:06:00] that your daughter drew a picture of a character, a monster, whatever character you want to make a person, I guess. Whatever you draw. And you can add, you can make it move. Yeah. So I took a picture with my phone and Canva has an app.

So it was very easy for me to transfer it from my phone into Canva. And then you can click on that photo, remove the background. And I added animations to make it move. And they have a type of animation where you can click on the image and drag it anywhere on the screen. Or you have specific ones like.

jumping, well, they call it like popping or wiggling, but yeah, so you can animate it however you want. Oh my gosh, that's so fun. You could have your little character like walking the path to their house. Like you could do Goldilocks going to the bear's house. It's actually walking to the bear's house.

How fun. Oh my gosh. I love that. , would that be an app or an add on or [00:07:00] where do you get these? So that's just right in Canva. You would create a design called a video. They have lots of different design templates inside of Canva. So you have like your document, which would be similar to a Word document.

They have presentations like a PowerPoint or Google Slides or a video. So for animations, I would create a video and that's where I would do that project. That is so fun. Okay, so let's talk about some things that teachers have to do all the time and how they can use Canva to make it go faster or be better or something like that.

Okay, so let's start with lesson plans. Okay, so Canva has a vast library of lesson plans available and you can find those inside of Canva and then edit them to meet your needs. I've also found that sometimes teachers, you spend a lot of time, creating [00:08:00] brain breaks, we'll say, or math problems just for a quick review.

Well, Canva has a feature called Bulk Create, where you can create these math questions or create these brain breaks. in just a couple of minutes using the feature already in Canva called MagicWrite. Magic is their AI. So by combining their magic AI with, Bulk create, you can quickly create these math slides or brain breaks or whatever.

And teachers are already so strapped on time. Like anything to make things go faster is better. Bulk create is one of my absolute favorite features in Canva that I, and one that I use a lot but I didn't ever think about using the AI in Canva to help me to build out the table that I'm going to use for my bulk create, I have used AI outside of it, like chat, GPT, and then copied and pasted it into the table for bulk create.[00:09:00]

But man, that makes it even faster to get that done. Yes. And the thing I love about understanding these features is once you know it exists, all of a sudden you have all these ideas for using that to help you get your work or your lessons done that much faster. Both you and me are both Curriculum creators.

We've done it. I mean, you said what 12 years I've been doing it about the same amount of time as well. And if I think back 12 years ago, if I needed to create anything, it was completely on my own bit by bit. It took forever. And now we have these tools that can help us. Just get it done even faster.

So teachers can depend on themselves a little bit more and not on other people to create for them all the time. So I love that. What about planning? Is there any way they can use. Canva and their planning. So they do have a lot of organizational [00:10:00] options inside of Canva to help with planning.

I feel like it's hard to just talk about it. I wish I could like show you, but inside, inside Canva, there is a section called the templates and you can search it. For education specifically, and then go by either grade level or subjects. And you can actually find a lesson plans that have been planned out for you inside.

So if you find a template that is in Canva let's say it's just, Maybe it's like a daily plan for, I don't know, your, all your subjects that you're going to teach. Can you use the AI to help you fill out the lesson plan? And I've just never done that before, so I don't know if it's possible. So if it were already planned out with like, pre existing text and you wanted to change it, you could click on the text boxes and MagicWrite will pop up in Canva and it will ask [00:11:00] you to, if you want to edit it, whether make it simplified, make it cuter, make it, they have all these different options that you can do to change what's already in there.

If there isn't text in the lesson plan, you could use the MagicWrite, which is just like ChatGPT. So if you're familiar with ChatGPT, you could just type in like create a math fact lesson plan for third grade and it could write the text for you. That is amazing. Okay, so let's move on from like the boring stuff and get into the fun stuff.

What are some things that you can do in Canva just to make your teaching more fun? Okay, there are lots of ways to use Canva to make learning just more fun and engaging. And being someone who, as an educator, use technology on a daily basis in my classroom, I think having students use the technology is a great idea.

In fact, I'm going to share an idea with you that my son actually did in [00:12:00] class. He came home from school about a week ago and they all have Chromebooks and he opens it up and he was working on this assignment. And I was like, what are you, is that Canva? And it was, and their teacher was having them use it's called magic media.

And they were to use magic media, type in a prompt, like. invention for cleaning your floors faster. And it came up with like these silly pictures. His was like a baby that had like mops on their hand. And then he was supposed to write a commercial, an advertisement to talk about this new invention

so this teacher had found a creative way to have her students use magic media to create an invention. And then they were going to write it in Canva either in a document or create a presentation to present their invention to the class. I just thought that was so fun. Not only is that fun, but it's teaching children how to use [00:13:00] AI as a tool to help them get their work done or to brainstorm, things like that.

Instead of just being scared of AI and just saying, no, no, no, no. That teacher found a way to build it into the lesson. That sounds so fun. So was the image of the baby with the mop hands, was that something that was generated through like an image generation? Yeah, they have that on Canva. So that's called Magic Media.

And you can just type something in. I had another lesson example where students were writing Like spooky stories. And so they would type in haunted house with ghosts, and it created an image of a haunted house with a ghost, but you could pick this style. So you could do it in anime. You could do it in realistic photos.

You could do it in stained glass window, and it would create this image to go along with their story. So they're writing a storybook, but the Canva AI is generating these pictures to [00:14:00] go with it. It's pretty incredible. AI is amazing and can be used in so many fun ways in the classroom. Oh, I would love to have the students get to invent their actual invention and write it up and think about it and then find a way to put that as their prompt into the image generation so that it came from their mind but then they can see it.

on paper as well. And then, it teaches them about tweaking prompts and things like that to get your desired outcome. That is such an amazing, amazing idea. Oh my gosh, that makes me want to be back in the classroom right now, just so I can do some of these fun things. Okay, so let's move on. How can Canva help with just your classroom decor?

So much. Okay. Classroom decor, there are a lot of options you could create. posters. You can create bulletin boarders. You can create banners. You could create little writing [00:15:00] projects to put onto your bulletin boards, bulletin board letters. Seriously, the options are endless when it comes to classroom decor.

And when you create things like posters, you can either print them as a normal size piece of paper, or you can print them poster size, where you have to maybe tape the pieces together to make it bigger. But all those file sizes are available in Canva so you don't have to figure out what size to make your decor.

You can just find a design and say poster and it will create that poster in the right size. If you haven't ever created in programs like PowerPoint, Understanding that concept may seem like a stretch, but that is amazing to have that ability of the correct size that you want to create your project in.

Yes. I also, I think I remember seeing that you can print it. Like have it professionally printed like you can send it off to be printed at off. I don't know where but [00:16:00] I feel like I saw that as an option. I think that is an option. I've never used it. I prefer just to either print it at home or do OfficeMax or something nearby but I have seen that option.

I haven't tried it before. Okay let's do one more. How can teachers use Canva to help streamline communication with parents? So I found this amazing part of Canva called Canva Websites, where you can create an actual website for your class. And I used to think websites had to be very difficult, and they would take hours and hours to build, or cost a lot of money.

But you can create a website in Canva and have a URL to your classroom hub, whatever you want to call it, where parents can come and find the weekly agenda, they can find the homework, you can update it with what's going on in class. So that's one [00:17:00] way to communicate with parents. Another way is to create classroom newsletters.

And something that I discovered is when I was teaching, I had a lot of Spanish speaking families. And so I had parents who didn't speak any English at all. And so it would have been nice to have this feature because in Canva, you can create a newsletter and literally with the click of a button called Translate in Canva, It translates the entire document into a different language.

I would choose Spanish, but they had probably 30 different language options. Wow. Yeah. If you choose to go the website route is it just as easy to edit the website content as it is just to edit a document? Just, Oh yeah, so you can just click edit and you can change it out every week, every month, every day if you wanted, and it updates automatically.

Oh my gosh, I can see that being used by students as well. What a great [00:18:00] way to creatively show what you've learned on a topic or a group project instead of just doing a PowerPoint or something like that. Why not make a website that's interactive? Wow, that is so cool. Man, I, again, I just. I use Canva a lot, so I love getting to learn new things that I haven't done or haven't tried.

So yeah, those are some great ways that teachers can use it, but also just amazing ways that students can use it. Have you heard or found that teachers have a difficult time allowing students to access it? I know a lot of times websites are blocked for students and they can't use it because it's blocked.

Have you heard anything about that? So I haven't heard a lot about that, but the district my kids go to is very technology forward, and so they're always very open to technology. Where I am, I don't hear a lot of that. I hear a lot of openness to using [00:19:00] it. I just hear a lot of difficulty from teachers just being overwhelmed.

Like I said with, well, where do I even start? What do I do type of deal? So learning how to do it is, I feel like the hurdle most teachers need to get over. Yeah. They need to follow you on Tik TOK or Instagram of ideas. Yeah, So, I obviously haven't used the student account, but is it exactly the same as the teacher account?

Or is it a different variable? So, I don't have a student or teacher account either. You have to be currently teaching in the classroom. And I substitute, but that doesn't count. So, I've only looked at it from my son's point of view, but he had everything. And based on when I've talked to Canva, like emailed them, it's the same.

and read on their website. The free Canva education account has access to all of the pro features. It's just for personal and classroom use. So you have access to everything as long as you're just using it for your [00:20:00] classroom. Okay. Wow. All right. So I'm going to go into asking you some questions that are just personal questions about your favorite parts.

of Canva. So your favorite things. Okay. So what is the Canva tool you can't live without? The one you just love the most? I mean, the bulk create is pretty amazing. So that's probably the one that I would choose or making videos for my business. I use that a lot too. I love bulk create so much that now I'm frustrated with PowerPoint that they don't have a bulk create.

I spent about like an entire day about a week ago. Figuring out how to code like a Python code so that I could I could make it work, like take a table and make it work. And then it just made me appreciate Canvas so much more that it's like there and ready to go and so easy. Okay. What is your favorite design element graphics or [00:21:00] photos?

Graphics. It depends on what I'm doing, but I do like their cute graphics. Okay. What is your favorite font? On Canva. Okay, there are so many, so I'm going to give you two.

If I'm making something cutesy, I like Nectarine. It's kind of a retro looking font, but if I am doing something that I want my students to be able to read, so it's like a worksheet, then I like KG Primary Penmanship. I love KG Primary Penmanship too. Okay, so your favorite Canva color palette, would it be bright colors or pastel colors?

It would definitely be bright. I'm looking at your bulletin board in your background. Bright for me as well, but a lot of people love that soft like purples and pinks. Okay, would you rather start with a template or start from scratch? I personally love starting from scratch [00:22:00] because I like the creative aspect, but for a lot of people the templates are great because you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Okay, so let's say that a teacher is just getting started. She's at the beginning. Would it be easier to start with posters or flashcards?

Probably posters, in my opinion. I would pick posters. Yeah, I think posters are easier if you want to get a little deeper and you want to try bold create then I think you could make some flashcards pretty easily with maybe vocabulary words or something like that. Okay. If you had five minutes only, you could only spend five minutes, would it be better to create?

A motivational poster or design a quick worksheet. Which could you do in five minutes? I could probably do the motivational poster and I'll tell you why. Because it's more colorful and I like colorful things. The worksheet is going to be black and white and so I'm going to [00:23:00] get bored quicker. So I would choose the poster.

I'd have more fun with it. That's what I would choose. Yeah, and I think either one of those would have a lot of templates that you could start with. I think you could just put in, classroom motivational poster and you would have all these amazing cute ones that you could just start with and maybe tweak a color or something to match your class.

And the same thing for a worksheet. I think if you just typed in. Multiplication worksheet. There would be a ton of templates that you could choose from to start with and then maybe you just modify the numbers or maybe you don't modify anything. Maybe you just print it and go. Okay, what is your favorite Canva feature that kids would use?

Stickers or animations? Oh, I think they would like the animations. And then last one preferred platform to use it on. Would you rather use it on your desktop or on your phone? Desktop for sure. I use my phone occasionally, but it's just too tiny. [00:24:00] Yeah. Same. I'm always blown away by people who say, yeah, I do everything on my phone.

I'm like, Oh, I have two giant screens and a third one laying in wait for me to use for all the things. Oh, my gosh. Well, I've had so much fun talking about these things, and it literally is making me want to get onto Canva and do something. I still tend to use PowerPoint for a lot of my creation. And if you would have asked me two years ago, I would have said that I would never use Canva to create a resource.

I would use it for my marketing or graphic design stuff, but for actual resource creation, no way, but now my mind has totally changed over the last couple of years because of all the tools and features that are available that helped me to create my resources faster than I could just using PowerPoint.

So, as we finish up here, is there any kind of final thoughts or any last things you want to say or [00:25:00] share about Canva or maybe how teachers could get started using Canva? So if you've never used Canva, go ahead and just find the Canva for Education account. You can just Google that and sign up.

You just need to verify you're a teacher. I've heard it's very easy and quick. Just to you put in like your school email and get started and then just create a document or a presentation, open it up and start playing with it so you can see how it works. It can feel daunting, but as you get going, really, honestly, you will just.

Like we've said before, your brain will just start working and you'll think, I just want to create like a million things and you'll have a bunch of ideas. So just getting started and opening it would be my very first tip. Awesome. Well, I know you have a million more tips where that came from, because I see them all the time on social media.

So if a listener wants to find you [00:26:00] so that they can learn more, how can they do that? They can go to either Instagram or TikTok and it's just at Teresa Kwant. T E R E S A K W A N T. And that will also be on the show notes so that you can read it. So thank you again for taking the time to share with us.

I'm excited about this episode and the people that are going to hear it. and the things that they're going to do with it. I am, I'm just so hopeful that someone is going to listen to this and then they're going to take those ideas, the animation stories or the invention lesson and bring those into the classrooms and then see what other ideas can be sparked by just getting started.

So thank you again for coming. Anytime. Thanks. Yeah. Bye.