Transcription
Hello there and welcome back to my channel. If you are a teacher and you want to use slides to teach your lessons, but you don't have the time, or brain power, or energy to create them from scratch. Wow, there's a lot of brain power in this room! I'm going to show you the easiest way to create lesson slides using Canva.
In this video, I'm going to walk you through how to find a template, customize it in order to fit your needs, use some of the presentation tools available in Canva, as well as share your slides with students, team teachers, and anyone else that may need access. But before we jump into it, in case you didn't know, you can actually get access to all the premium Canva features completely for free as an educator. All you have to do is go to canva.com/education for the details, but I will also have that linked for you down below.
The first thing we are going to do is locate a template. These are pre-made slideshows that you can then go in and customize. So from Canva's homepage, I'm going to go ahead and click on templates on the left-hand side. And from here, I can search based on the topic that I want slides for. So up at the top, I'm going to click in the search bar and type shapes. Click enter.
Now, you will notice I've got some that look like slides, but also some that look like worksheets. If I'm wanting to create slides, then I want to filter it so it only shows me presentations. In order to do that, I'm going to click here where it says category. I'm going to click education to get that dropdown, choose resource type, and then choose presentations. Now I have access to all of the presentations that have to do with shapes already available within Canva.
Now from here, I can just scroll and look for one that I like. So maybe I want to use this one right here. If I click on it, I can get a preview of what some of the other slides look like. And if I want to use this template, I'm just going to click customize this template. It's going to save a fully editable copy of the slides to my Canva account. From here, it has only inserted that title slide. If I want to insert all of the slides, I can just click apply all 10 pages. And now if I scroll, I can see all of those slides already loaded into my presentation for me.
That brings us to the next step, which is customizing the template. From here, I can change any of the text, images, colors, and so on. But I want to show you a few hacks to make it a little bit easier. I'm going to go ahead and click the arrow to go back to the main design section and I'm going to click on styles.
From here, I can very quickly change all of the text in order to be a certain font or a certain color scheme. So let's start with the fonts. Maybe I don't want to use this font, but within my Canva account, I have already selected certain fonts that I like under my brand. So right here, I have my brand fonts. If I click this, it's going to automatically change those text boxes in order to fit my brand. Now, it has only changed the first one, but if I click apply to all pages, it will apply those same changes to every single slide within my presentation. So it's a really fast way to make a lot of bulk changes.
I can also do the same with my colors. So you'll see some color combinations recommended down here. You can scroll through and select any of them. But if you already have some saved under your brand, so for example, I have these bright colors, I can click. It's going to apply those colors. But if I don't love it, I can actually shuffle through them. So if I keep clicking, notice that little shuffle icon, it's going to keep changing it. And I can click as many times as I need to in order to find what I like. So still not loving that. Better. Okay, that I'm a little bit happier with. I can click apply to all pages. And once again, it's going to apply across.
But if I don't love it, let's come to this second slide and I don't love this black background. Once again, I could click here and it's going to shuffle and create a new color combination. Once you have your style in place the way that you want, you can also go in and customize any of the elements such as the text boxes, images, shapes, and so on. So for example, if I don't want this triangle, I can click on it and choose backspace or delete on my keyboard. It will disappear.
But I can also insert other elements in. So I could click on elements. I could come over to let's maybe do a star. I like that. And then I can choose some of the shapes. So I could choose that star and I could add in a border if I want. And I can fully customize this to make it look however I want. Click and drag to resize. And I can repeat that process for any of those elements I want to change.
You can also duplicate slides. So maybe I really like this slide, but I want to give some examples. I can click the duplicate page button. It's right here. It looks like two back-to-back rectangles with a plus sign. It's going to make an exact copy of that slide. And maybe I want to add in examples. So I could change just this text box to say examples and then I could type in circle, rectangle, square, so on and so forth.
You could also add additional slides from other templates. So maybe I chose this template, but there was a slide from another template that I really liked. You can actually insert that into the template you're already using. So I'm going to come back to design, come back to templates. And from here, I could type back in shapes. And maybe there's a slide here. I don't know. We're going to click and see. Okay, I kind of like these real-world examples. You know, I feel like that could be useful. I can go ahead and click the plus sign. From there, it's going to prompt me to either replace my current page or add it as a new page. I'm going to add as a new page.
From there, I can customize the colors just like I did before. So maybe I want this background to be that pink color. I want this to be maybe let's go white. These text boxes, maybe I'm going to do black. So just to show you how to select multiple text boxes, if you click the first one, hold down shift on your keyboard, you can click each other text box. And notice they are all selected because they have that purple outline. I can change the text to black. It's faster to do it all at once as opposed to changing it for each text box. And let's go ahead and change the font as well. So we want that Poppins and maybe we do semi-bold. That looks good. And then I could leave those images as they are.
So you can repeat this process to customize the slides however you want. You can add in your own slides, you can add them from templates, you can customize them, and it makes it a lot easier than starting with a blank slideshow.
But I also mentioned that I wanted to share some presentation tools with you to make it a little bit more interactive. Now, there are a few different ways you can go into present mode from Canva. First, you can click the present button right up at the top. And you have a few options. So you can choose present full screen, presenter view, which is really helpful if you are presenting within a video conferencing software such as like Zoom or Google Meet, because you can see the slides and present the slides, but also have access to your notes and some other tools. You can also present and record, or have it autoplay. So if you have timings inserted into your slides, it will automatically progress through according to those timings.
But with present full screen selected, I'm going to go ahead and click present. Now, it is presenting from that slide that I had selected. So if I want to start from the beginning, I would want to make sure I was on that first slide. But I can always navigate back using my arrow keys. I'm just clicking the left arrow key in order to go back to the beginning.
The other way I can go into present mode, I'm going to click escape to go back to the edit mode, is clicking this present full screen button at the bottom. It looks like two arrows and it will go into that full screen presenting mode as well.
From present mode, I have a few different tools. So if I bring my mouse down to the bottom, you will notice this toolbar. So in addition to using the arrow keys, I can also progress through the slides using the buttons down here at the bottom. I can go left or right. I can also come over here to the zoom button. So this is really nice because you can actually zoom in or out on the slide. If you have zoomed in and you want to go back to normal, you can click the fit button and it will rescale it back to the beginning.
You can also use magic shortcuts, which I absolutely love. I shared all about these in my five Canva hacks video, which I will have linked for you in the description box. But if you click the keyboard, you can see these magic shortcuts. So you have a reminder of what letters will prompt each shortcut. But you can click any of these letters on your keyboard or click them from here, and you will get these animations. So for example, confetti, you will see the confetti. But there also are sound effects, which just makes it really fun. Once again, you can also use your keyboard in order to show these. So for example, if I click B, it will blur my slide. And then if I click B again, it will unblur my slide.
I can also insert in timers by clicking any of the numbers. So if I click five, it will show me a five-minute timer. From here, I can increase or decrease the number of minutes. I can click and edit specifically the timer to display a time that I want. So for example, five minutes, 30 seconds. I can start the timer using the play button, pause the timer, I can reset it. I can also click minimize in order to get that timer to go away.
Going back down to that toolbar, next to the magic shortcuts is the interactive Q&A. So if you click that, you can start a new Canva Live session. So I'm going to click start new session. From here, your audience, or in this case, your students, can actually join in and ask questions in real time, and you can have them displayed. So they can scan the QR code, or they can go to canva.live and type in that specific code. From there, they will be able to insert in their questions. So if you wanted to, you could actually have Canva.live linked, maybe on an LMS such as Google Classroom, so students have easy access to it. And then all they have to do is type in that code.
As the presenter, you can end it at any time or hide it. So you can leave it running, they can type in their questions, and then you could display it again whenever you are ready, maybe at the end of your slides. So in order to display it again, you can just click interactive Q&A and it will pop back up. You can also share that invitation directly with students. So you can copy and paste it into Google Classroom or another LMS.
Just to show you what this looks like from the student perspective, I'm going to go ahead and scan that QR code. Click the link. I'm going to now type in a question such as, "What is a 2D shape?" Click done. I'm going to enter it in. I can put in my name or leave it as anonymous. And as you can see, that question has shown up. From there, I could thumbs up. But also on the student view, I could thumbs it up as well. And I can see how many students have requested that question. So it's a really easy way to see which questions are most popular.
I can also open up the presenter view while I am presenting full screen. So that is that next button here. I can also click the more button to see even more options. So I also have the remote control that will allow me to control my slides from another device like my phone or a tablet. I can advance slides, as well as show those magic shortcuts like the confetti and some of those other options. Once again, I showed you exactly how to do that in my five Canva hacks for teachers video, which I will have linked down below. I can also click to show the timer directly from here, but I do think it's faster if you just use your keyboard if you have that available.
I can start autoplay, which once again will go through my slides by those predetermined time frames that I gave it. I can hide or show my magic cursor. So right now, see how I have that blue dot? If I click hide, now I just have a normal cursor. So that can be an easy way to kind of drag your students' attention to it. And I can also show or hide live edits. And if I want to exit full screen, I can click the exit full screen button here, or I can click escape on my keyboard.
The last thing I want to go through is being able to share your slides with others, whether you want students to be able to follow along or have access, or you want to share it with team teachers or families. So in order to share my slides, I'm going to click the share button up at the top right-hand corner. From here, I can actually add individuals by name if they're within my organization, or I could type in like their email address and I can add them individually there. But I can also get a collaboration link. So if I click only you can access, I will have a dropdown. I can change it to anyone with the link. This is very similar to how you share things like Google Slides. From there, I can choose whether they can edit it, view, or comment. So maybe I want my students just to have view access for the slides. I could change it to can view. And then I can copy and paste that link anywhere I want, such as an LMS like Google Classroom.
But I could also share it as a template link. So let's say I want my team teachers to have access to their own version of the slides. Maybe they need to make changes specific to students in their class. I can click on more. And then from here, I can choose template link. And if I share this link with my team teachers, just to show you, I'm going to click copy. I'm going to go ahead and open up a new tab. I'm going to paste that link, click enter. And you will notice that they get a screen that looks like this. They can click use template, and they will have their own editable version of the slide. So it will not make changes to yours, but they're able to customize it however they need.
Now, you can also embed your slides within a website. New website, blah, blah, blah. So previously, I have showed you how to create a class or grade level website using Google Sites. It's completely free. The tutorial video will be linked for you in the description box. Maybe within my Google Site, I have a page for each subject or a page for each unit that I teach, and I want to put my slides directly on the Google Site so students could access it at home, as well as family. If I want to do that, I can click share. Once again, I'm going to click more. And I'm going to choose embed. I'm going to click embed. And from here, I have an HTML code as well as a smart embed link. We're going to go ahead and copy that HTML code. And we're going to go over to the Google Site.
From here, I can click the embed button. So maybe I'll just do it under here. So we'll be in this section, embed. I can click embedded code. I can paste that code that I had copied. Click next. It's going to give me a preview of what those slides look like. I can click insert. And then from here, I can resize it as needed. So I can make this a little bit bigger. And my students and their families would have access to this slideshow right on that grade level Google Site.
Another option is to download the slides as either a PowerPoint, PDF, or even individual images, and then share it with students or families through email or an LMS like Google Classroom. So I'm going to come back to the share button. And this time, I'm going to click where it says download. Under file type, I have several different options. So for example, if I want to actually download it as a file, it will convert my Canva slides to a PowerPoint. But I could also download it as a PDF, or as I mentioned, individual images.
I'm going to go ahead and choose PDF print. You have a few different options. So you can flatten the PDF. That's going to compress all your images and text boxes. So each slide is almost like one individual image, but it's up to you. You also can select specific slides. So maybe I only want slides 1, 2, and 3. I can select those. Click done. I usually leave the color profile as RGB. And then you can click download. It will take a few seconds depending on your file size. But notice it also gives me a view link. So down here, it says I can share my design with others. This link will give others the ability to view the slides without making any changes. So that's an option as well.
But I'm going to go ahead and open up that PDF just to show you what it looks like. Now, I did not retitle this, so it has kind of a weird title. But from here, I actually have that PDF file that I could then attach to an email to share with families or attach to Google Classroom.
But I mentioned you could also download a single slide as an image. So maybe I want to be able to use this image almost like a virtual anchor chart and either print it or have it displayed on Google Classroom. I can come back to share, choose download. This time I'm going to choose either JPEG or PNG. It's up to you. I'm going to choose PNG. You can change the size if needed, have a transparent background, it is up to you. But you could choose just that specific page. So I'm going to uncheck where it says all pages, but choose current page, which is page two. Click done. Download. And this time, it's going to download it just as an image, which once again, I could insert into an email or attach within Google Classroom, or even print out and display in my classroom.
But that is it. That's how you can use Canva in order to very easily and quickly create lesson slides to use within your classroom. I also have a tutorial video on how to use Canva to create classroom decor, such as posters that you can then print and display. If you are interested in that, the link will be down in the description box, as well as that five Canva hacks for teachers video that I mentioned previously, and the video on how to create your own class grade level website using Google Sites.
If you found this video helpful, please give it a thumbs up, hit the subscribe button and notification bell so you do not miss any future videos. As always, thank you for watching. I love you so much. Don't forget to put your positive pants on, and I will catch you in the next one.