This time last year, I was tasked with creating a nursery rhyme poster using one of several different presentation tools for a Children’s Lit class. I tried Smore a bit, took a very quick look at Canva, and then defaulted to my comfort zone: Powerpoint. I frequently use Google Slides as well, but I’ve continued to avoid the others as they required more time initially for me figure out how they work. This class has encouraged (read: forced) me to try all kinds of new tools and technologies, so I decided I try Canva since the 30 seconds I gave it last summer obviously wasn’t enough time to form an opinion.

Chris Van Allsburg Presentation using Canva

After spending just a few minutes exploring Canva, I was pleasantly surprised by how intuitive it is to use, and I would certainly recommend this tool in our resources presentation. The number of categories of templates, not to mention the number of templates in each category, is incredible. It allows for a much more individualized presentation than either Google Slides or Powerpoint and offers seemingly endless ways to customize each presentation or product. It does look as though one would have to pay for Canva Pro to take advantage of some of its features, but there are many options and features available free of charge.

When it came to creating my presentation, I found embedding the video a bit challenging at first, but I was able to find answers to any questions that arose using Canva’s help center. Inserting images was simple enough, and I like the ease with which font, size, and color can all be changed, along with backgrounds and graphics. Dragging, dropping, and resizing aspects of my presentation was also easily accomplished.