German EdTech Sdui Extends Series A Funding to €25M
Sdui, a Koblenz, Germany-based startup focused on communication and organisation at schools and daycare centres, raised an additional funding extending its Series A round to €25M. The round was led by HV Capital and Haniel, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Brighteye Ventures, as well as Dr Michael Hinderer, who invested as a business angel with his family office JSM Hinderer, and growth debt investor Kreos Capital.
Founded in 2018 by Daniel Zacharias, Sdui’s purpose is to connect teachers, educators, parents and children with each other through smart functions. Using the platform, it reduces the administrative workload and frees up time for the essential mission of the institutions: providing the best possible education. The startup offers GDPR-compliant solutions, with functions such as chat, video calls, cloud, timetable or translations specifically tailored to the needs of schools and daycare centres.
It is one of the fastest-growing startups in the German EdTech industry as the Sdui Group. As a reliable partner, it guides educational institutions, responsible authorities, and ministries through the digitalization process and develops the operating system for digital schools and daycare centres.
Sdui’s goal is to provide both a foundation and a tool: a solution in which all relevant people come together in a safe environment and everyone can access the functions and support that make their everyday life easier. The firm plans to utilize the funds to accelerate international expansion and scale its product. It also intends to position itself as a partner for educational institutions across Europe.
We are delighted to have renowned investors – Daniel Zachrias
Commenting on the funding, Founder & CEO of Sdui, Daniel Zacharias, said:
We are delighted to have a number of renowned investors on our board that is committed to our future strategy and continue to support Sdui’s ambitions to scale in Europe. With revenue growth of more than 300 per cent since the initial Series A in March 2021, Sdui has been able to prove how much more potential our startup’s business model offers. These investments are building the bridge towards profitability, giving us additional confidence to execute our strategy in the current financial market environment.
Zacharias further added:
We see easy access to education as one of the greatest challenges of our time and an essential requirement for Europe’s future. Our conviction is: Sdui will be the digital provider of an innovative operating system that leverages the digitization processes of schools and daycare centres for both public and private providers.
Headquartered in Koblenz, the company comprises companies in Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, with a total of around 170 employees. In addition, the Sdui Group is active in another 4 countries, including Italy and Spain. Currently, more than 10,000 educational institutions all over Europe are using the solution. The latest round of funding brought Sdui’s valuation to three-digit million; however, the exact amount was not disclosed.
New Moodle LAE Releases for January 2023 available
CLAMP – The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project has released three new Moodle: Liberal Arts Edition versions. The three Moodle versions doesn’t include any new features, these are only maintenance releases.
The next stable releases are scheduled for mid-March. CLAMP evaluated Moodle 4.1 at the Winter 2023 Hack/Doc Fest at Swarthmore College. CLAMP will release the first 4.1 version of the LAE the week of January 23rd. The New three versions releases are as follows:
The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project (CLAMP) is a group of colleges and universities who collaborate to develop and support Moodle, with an eye toward the issues unique to a liberal arts environment.
The major work of CLAMP focuses on fostering collaboration and support around Moodle by hosting events, sharing knowledge, evaluating features, creating documentation, fixing bugs, and developing code. While much of the ongoing work is accomplished online using a variety of tools, CLAMP hosts events each year to provide opportunities for community members to learn, share, hack, and document together in person.
CLAMP is governed by a steering committee consisting of elected participants from seven member schools. Each school serves a three year term with a staggered rotation for new schools serving each year.
Get ready for the MoodleMoot Global 2023 from 18-21 September, 2023!
The MoodleMoot Global 2023 will be organized from 18-21 September, 2023 in Hotel Barceló Sants, Barcelona. MoodleMoot Global is one of the biggest EdTech conference related to world’s most popular LMS – Moodle. It has been one of the most active Moodle community event with participants from all over the world.
There were more than 835 participants in the last MoodleMoot Global 2022. The MoodleMoot Global 2023 will be having a pre-conference DevJam and Moodle Global Partners Day on September 18 while MoodleMoot Global will run from 19–21 September.
The Moodle community holds events and MoodleMoots (our name for conferences) all around the world, with a focus on encouraging collaboration and sharing of best practices of the open source learning platform.
Complete details about the MoodleMoot Global 2023 are still awaited and will be updated here. Please stay tuned.
Here are the best presentations and conference sessions from MoodleMoot Global 2022:
Moodle Teachers - Use Completion Progress block - time-management tool for students
Completion Progress Block is one of the most popular Moodle plugins in the official plugins directory. It is defined as a time-management tool for students. In this post, we will see how you can setup the Completion Progress block and use it in your Moodle course.
Moodle plugins allows you to extend Moodle features in all areas. There are more than 2060 plugins contributed by the community developers in the official Moodle plugins directory. Completion progress Block was initially developed by Michael de Raadt and is currently maintained by Jonathon Fowler. It is one of the most downloaded block type plugin in the last 12 months with more than 12k downloads.
You can download the latest version of the Completion Progress block from the official plugins repository here. In case you are new to Moodle, you can follow this guide to learn how to install a Moodle plugin. Once installed, you can start using the block easily.
Let’s see how you can use it:
How to use Completion Progress block
The completion progress block works as a time management tool for your learners. It includes the following features:
Visual representation of activities to be completed
Colour-coded for quick reference
Overview for teachers, identify students at risk
Combined progress on Dashboard page
How to Add Completion Progress block
To add the block to your course, you ned to follow these steps:
Turn on the Editing Mode on
Click Add a block
Choose Completion Progress block
The block will be added in your course.
Completion progress Block in a Moodle Course
How to configure Completion Progress block
Once added, you can configure the block by clicking the Gear icon against the Block name. Here are the major configuration options:
Order bar by – There are two options:
Time using ‘Expect completion’ on date – The expected completion date of activities is used to order the activities in the bar.
Ordering in course – Activities are presented in the same order as they are on the course page.
How to present Long bars
Squeezed into one horizontal bar
Scrolling sideways to show overflowing bar segments
Wrapping to show all bar segments on multiple lines.
Use Icons in bar – You can use Tick & Cross icons in the completion progress to make it more visually accessible for students.
Show Percentage to Students – It will show the overall progress to students based on the activities completed out of total activities.
There are few more interesting settings hidden under ‘Show more’ link which are:
Visible only to group or grouping
Activities Included – Here you can choose specific activities to be a part of Progress bar.
Completion Progress block Overview Page
The Overview Page
The Completion Progress Overview page allows teachers to see the status of all students in a class, which is helpful for finding students at risk.
You can also add the block to the Dashboard page where it will show users a combined view of their progress from all courses they are enrolled in (and the block is setup).
So, this is all about the Completion Progress block and how you can use it in your Moodle course. Do you have any questions about it, please feel free to put them in the comments section below.
Udemy Business Launches Courses in Hindi for Skill Development Opportunities in India
Udemy, a leading destination for learning and teaching online, recently announced the launch of Hindi courses to its Udemy Business International Collection (IC), offering critical business and technical courses taught by real-world experts in their native language.
According to the official statement, through the IC, Udemy Business Enterprise Plan customers can have access to more than 12,000 courses in 14 languages, including Hindi which is spoken by 43.6% of Indians or 52.83 crore people as per the Census of India 2011. The courses include categories such as Leadership and Management, Data Science, Sales, IT Operations, Cloud Computing, Finance & Accounting, Marketing and Personal Development.
The IC is a set of proven courses carefully curated from the Udemy marketplace and taught by native-speaking, subject-matter experts who incorporate cultural nuances in their courses, making them more relevant to learners. The collection goes beyond the traditional approach of content dubbing and video captions of English language courses, optimizing quality and authenticity. With rising turnover and continued automation, there is a drive for flexible online training solutions to meet the growing demand from organizations and professionals.
Commenting on the latest development, Country Head, India and South Asia, Udemy Business, Vinay Pradhan, said:
Udemy has long provided the industry’s largest collection of local-language courses created by local experts. There will be accelerated change in the workplace which will require individuals to continually upskill and reskill. Closing skills gaps in today’s uncertain global economy is necessary for organizations to stay competitive. Language should not act as a barrier for learning, which is why we provide truly localized learning experiences to thousands of companies across Asia-Pacific.
In addition, courses that Udemy Business claims to offer in Hindi include Python for Beginners – Learn Python Programming, Understand Manufacturing Drawing Quick and Correct, Introduction To SEO Based Content Writing, Data Analyst Skill Path and Technical Analysis: Harmonic Chart Patterns and Stock Trading.
The Udemy marketplace features more than 200,000 courses across nearly 75 languages, including other regional languages in India such as Tamil and Telugu. The IC helps Udemy fulfill its mission to improve lives through learning by broadening learner participation, boosting the interest of individuals in learning and making learning more accessible to everyone.
India’s fastest-growing pedagogy company providing an edge to deliver quality education across all major boards, Saarthi Pedagogy has recently announced that it has raised INR 10 crore from venture capital firm GVFL Limited, marking the final close of its Pre-Series A round at $3.7 million (around INR 30 crore).
The round was also joined by Prestige Group subsidiary Pinnacle Investments. With this fundraising, the Ahmedabad-based startup plans to work for product enhancement, the ramp-up of the technology team, content creation, and expansion of the sales footprint.
Speaking about the company, Founder & CEO of Saarthi Pedagogy, Sushil Agrawal, said:
“We are laser-focused on solving the problem of 4.5 lakh budget schools that charge a fee between Rs 15,000 – 45,000. These are schools where affordability is a major concern and students are extremely value conscious, but they also require a tech-driven learning solution to make a meaningful difference in their student’s learning outcomes.”
Started by Sushil Agarwal in 2018, Saarthi Pedagogy provides learning management solutions for educational institutions to identify improvements in students’ learning outcomes. The platform also offers to personalize and bring ease to the teaching and learning experiences based on the learner’s needs. The company’s mission is to empower schools technologically to bridge the learning gap and attain rote-free learning outcomes.
Earlier this year, the EdTech company launched its revamped technology platform that enables educational institutions to identify improvements in the learning outcomes of all students. The updated technology platform has been well received, and it now allows school administrators to track the progress of each student and teacher, the company said in a statement.
Kamal Bansal, Managing Director, GVFL, said:
India’s edtech market, which was valued at USD 2.8 billion in 2020, is projected to expand at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 39 per cent and reach USD 10 billion by 2025, with K-12 learning solutions accounting for 41 per cent of the total market size. It gives us immense pleasure to join hands with Saarthi which bridges the gap between grades and knowledge and delivers an end-to-end solution for schools, teachers, and students, as opposed to point solutions available in the current edtech industry
Last year in March, Saarthi Pedagogy raised about $2.1 million (INR 16 crore) as a part of its Pre-Series A funding round led by Pinnacle Investments. Prior to that, it had raised $943,000 (INR 7 crore). The funding round was led by Ecosystem Ventures, with participation from other investors, including LetsVenture, JITO Angel Network, and other marquee angels. The startup’s latest investment brings its total raised to $4.7 million.
What is Mote and How Can It Be Used to Teach? Tips & Tricks
Mote is the digital audio note taking tool which lets you add audio to variety of apps for personal feedback and digital communication for online education. Mainly Mote supports Google products to allow educators to share audio feedback across Google Apps like Gmail, Docs, Slide, Sheets etc. Recently, Mote has started a new service to record your audio feedback live on web which can be transcribed & translated to different languages and shared with your students. In this post we will see in detail What is Mote and how it can be used in online teaching.
Mote allows you to share personal feedback with your students without getting misunderstood for the tone or other issues coming from the text feedback. This can be very handy for learners who are not clear with the text based feedback and need a personal touch. Students can also respond to the feedback in a similar way making for personal back and forth across the digital space. In modern digital world, the ability to add more personalised human touch is a valuable resource.
What is Mote?
Initially started as a Google Chrome extension, Mote allows you to communicate with Google tools like Google Classroom, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Gmail using voice recordings. Recently, Mote team has launched a completely web version where you can record your audio, get the text transcription of the same, translate it to another language and share with your learners.
Mote can be very helpful for language learning courses as it can be used to improve listening skills and build confidence with spoken words. It supports transcription in more than 34 world languages, including English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
This makes it possible to share a voice recording with anyone, anywhere and with any device with a web browser and audio recording capabilities. There is a limit of 5 minutes in the free version and you can share only 20 voice feedback notes per month. However the premium version which starts with $4.95 per month allows you unlimited audio notes.
How does Mote work?
Mote can be installed as Google Chrome extension. To add it in your Google Chrome browser, you can go to the Chrome Web Store at: https://chrome.google.com/webstore From here you can find Mote extension in the search bar on top left.
Mote Chrome Extension Installation
Once you found Mote extension, Click on the “Add to Chrome” button on the extension’s page. You will then get a pop-up window letting you know when the installation is done. You need to sign-in to your Mote account before you cans tart using it.
Once you are logged in, you can use Mote from google apps like Gmail, Google Docs etc. In Gmail, you will get a new Mote icon in the editor tools. You can click on it to start recording which will be automatically inserted in your email once done.
Mote in Gmail
Similarly you can use the Mote in Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Classroom and other products to comment/feedback using audio recordings.
Mote in Google Docs for commenting
Every recording gives you the option to include a transcript, which is helpful if students want to read rather than listen to your feedback. It is helpful for users who are travelling and are not able to hear clearly or otherwise they want to have a written translation in another language.
What are the best Mote features?
Mote works across a host of Google products like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, Google Forms etc. It is also having close integration with Canvas LMS also. You can share the recordings as MP3 files by downloading them and even embed them in your website using embed code. You can also star marked important notes in the Motebook.
It supports more than 34 languages including English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Arabic. This means that you can translate your audio transcription into any other language. It may be helpful for language teaching courses where the learners are more comfortable in their native language so as to understand you clearly.
The Mote mobile App works well on Android and iOS devices with the capability to record audio while on the go.
How much Mote costs?
Mote let’s you try out for Free account with a limitation of 5 minutes recording time. The free plan comes with a limitation of 20 voice notes per month.
The Unlimited Individual plan which comes at $4.95/month which allows you to create unlimited voice notes. It also brings features like transcribe your voice, translate into 34 languages, Save & reuse your recordings with MoteBook and see activity breakdown reports.
There are Custom tailormade plans for groups or teams which comes with all the features of the Unlimited plan as well as User Management. The pricing are charged at quote rates.
What is Descript and How Can it Be Used to Teach? Tips & Tricks
With so many video/audio editing tools available around if I tell you that you can edit your video/audio files easily like as a document file, what is your reaction? Descript is an all in one video & audio editing tool which will make your life simple like editing a document. In this post we will have a look at What is Descript and How can it be used for teaching.
With the modern education tools, the teachers have to shuffle across many tools to make their online course including video, audio, presentations and other resources. While many teachers don’t face any problem in recording the videos, it is the editing part which proves to be difficult for many of them.
Descript is the solution to edit all your audio & video projects as it will help you get started very quickly and save you a lot of time. You can simply record your video and edit it in Descript like a document file. Descript, as the name suggests, also offers automatic transcription of audio.
You can use Descript if you are looking for easy to use tool for video editing, audio editing, trouble-free screen recording, podcast editing, make good subtitles, create a text-to-speech model of your voice, Remove noise, enhance speech and sound like a pro and many more features.
What is Descript?
Descript is an all in one video and audio editing and production tool that’s as easy as a doc. It also specialises in Podcast creation, specifically for groups.
Descript makes it easy to transcribe video & audio files into text. Simply create a project, select the file you want to transcribe, and wait a few seconds for your accurate transcription. Descript also makes it easy to correct any inaccuracies by removing the incorrect words, so you can quickly take your transcript from highly accurate to perfect.
Remove all unnecessary words like ‘umm’, ‘uh’, ‘you know’ and other filler words from your video easily
Create shareable pages for your audio/video with a click.
Descript comes in both web-based and desktop versions which makes it easy to use across devices. For educators, the features like creating their own speech model, easy screen recording and removing the filler words can be very handy.
How does Descript work?
To get started with Descript, you can sign up for the Free Plan. All you need to sign-up before downloading the software to get started. Once installed, you will see a few survey questions about your usage of the tool.
Descript Intro Screen
Once you are logged in, you will see a blank project page. You can click on New Project button to add a new Video or Audio Project. For this example, let me choose a Video Project. Once your project is created, you can:
Choose a file to transcribe
Start Recording
Start Writing
Start from a template
If you go ahead with recording, you will see the options to record Audio only, Camera or Screen. Once you drop a file, it will take sometime to create the transcribe but once it is ready you can easily remove all unnecessary words and shorten word gaps.3
What is Descript and How Can it Be Used to Teach? Tips & Tricks
Similarly, You can record the audio for your podcast as an individual or part of a group. The ability to collaborate, remotely, is a really powerful feature that students working on a project across locations outside of school hours could find very useful. The magic part comes after the recording is done which is to edit the audio and video in a timeline style.
It is then possible to export your project to various formats like Video, Audio, GIF’s, Timeline, Transcript as well as subtitles. You can also publish your project to YouTube, Wistia, Podcast.co, Buzzsprout, Blubrry or as a Web Link.
What are the best Descript features?
Descript is one of the tools which is easy to get started for new users. It offers intuitive controls without getting too complicated for the users. The best Descript features are:
AI powered Transcription – The transcription of the audio or video is done via AI which is mostly correct without any problems.
Overdub Voice Cloning – This allows you to offer quality voice corrections to audio recordings simply by typing the corrections. It will help you save a lot of time and avoid re-recordings hassles.
Remove Noise and filler words – It is general tendency to use filler words while recording as we are not professional artists. Descript makes it easy to remove the filler words and shorten word gaps.
Live collaboration – very useful for students collaborating on a single project.
How much does Descript cost?
While Descript offers you a free plan to get started easily, it offers several tiers of pricing which can be paid in Monthly or Annually. The different tiers are: Free, Creator, Pro and Enterprise.
Al plans include common features like Transcription, Editing, Screen Recording, Templates, Stock media and Captions. The annual plans offers you a 20% discount billed annually.
Descript Pricing Tiers
Free Plan
The free plan offers you a total transcription duration of 1 hour per month in 23 languages, 1 watermark free video export, 720p video export resolution, detection of 8+ speakers, dynamic captions, unlimited projects, animation and transitions, filler word removal of “um and “uh,” overdub voice to 1,000 word limit, Studio sound to 10 min, AI green screen up to 10 min, Cloud Storage of 5 GB, stock media library of first five search results, stock template library, collaboration and commenting.
Creator Plan
If you choose the Creator plan for $12/month (paid on Annual basis), you will get all the above plus – 100 GB cloud storage, 10 hr/month transcription hours, unlimited exports, 4K resolution, one hour of studio sound, one hour of AI background removal, first 12 search results of the stock media library, creation and sharing of templates.
Pro Plan
The next tier i.e. Pro Plan comes at $24/month (paid on annual basis) will includes all the above plus – 300 GB cloud storage, 30 hr/ month transcriptions hours, 18 filler words and repeated words, Unlimited Overdub, Unlimited AI Green Screen, Unlimited Studio Sound, Unlimited Stock Library, Custom font upload, 3 hours Video publishing duration limit, White labeled publish pages and Batch file export. It also comes with Custom drive & page branding.
Enterprise Plan
A Custom pricing plan for Enterprises is also available for teams of more than 10 users. The Enterprise plan gives you access to all Pro features plus a dedicated account representative, single sign on, overdub enterprise, Descript service agreement, security review, invoicing, onboarding, and training.
Moodle LMS offers you to create complete online learning portals easily. With more than 2060 plugins contributed by the community developers it is easy to extend Moodle’s functionality to meet your organizational requirements. In this post, we will see Custom Certificate plugin which allows you to dynamically create certificates with user data.
Custom Certificate is mainly intended to be used to create course completion certificate when the user completes a course in Moodle. It can help you automatically generate a PDF certificate populated with the user data like Course Completion date, User Name, Course Name etc.
The Custom Certificate plugin is one of the most popular Moodle plugins. It is the most downloaded activity type plugins in the last 12 months with more than 30k downloads and fourth most downloaded overall. You can download the latest version of Custom Certificate plugin from the official Moodle plugins directory here. In case you are new to Moodle, please follow this guide to learn how to install a Moodle plugin.
Once installed, you can use the Custom Certificate plugin in your course based on the configurations by your site administrator. Let’s see how you can use it to create automatic certificates in your Moodle course:
How to use Custom Certificate plugin?
The custom certificate allows you completely customizable PDF certificates right from your Moodle. You can customize your certificate design using your browser and Moodle. There is no need to access server through FTP to customize the certificate.
The plugin provides one of the easy and optimized way of customizing certificates in Moodle. The teacher can itself create its own certificate without any major technical knowledge. The administrators can create site-wide templates which can be used by teachers when adding a certificate to a course, saving them from re-creating the same certificate over and over again.
The plugin have options to send emails to students, teachers as well as other users when the certificate is ready. It also comes with handy feature to verify the certificate with a unique code. You can also configure to let students spent required minutes in a course before they will receive the certificate.
All the certificates issues to a student will be listed under My Certificates page under the profile page.
How to Add Custom Certificate in your course?
In order to add a custom certificate to your Moodle course, please follow these steps:
Enter the Editing Mode by clicking the ‘Turn Editing On’ toggle.
Navigate to the section where you want to add the certificate, generally it is kept in the last section of the course.
Click Add an Activity or Resource and choose Custom Certificate. It will take you to the settings page
Enter a name and description for the custom certificate which will be displayed on course page.
Add a new Custom certificate
Under the Options section:
Delivery options – You can choose either to force download the PDF certificate or display it in browser.
Email students – If set Yes, this will send an email to students a copy of the certificate when it becomes available.
Email teachers – If set Yes, this will send an email to teachers a copy of the certificate when it becomes available.
Email others – You can add any other email addresses (separated by comma) who will receive the certificate copy.
Allow anyone to verify a certificate – This allows anyone (not logged in Moodle) to verify the certificate using the certificate verification link.
Required minutes in course – Specify the time students required to spent in the course before the certificate will be available.
Set protection – Choose the actions you wish to prevent users from performing:
Print
Modify
Copy
How to configure Custom Certificate?
Once you have added, click Save and Display at the bottom of the page. On this page, you will see the students who have received the certificate. Under the top navigation bar, click “Edit Certificate” to configure your own certificate.
Custom certificate edit page with elements
On the top, you can define the name, Width, Height, Left margin and Right Margin for the certificate. Under that you will see the option to add different elements. The elements field includes the options to add:
Background Image
Border
Category Name
Code
Course Field
Course name
Date
Date Range
Digital Signature
Grade
Grade Item Name
Image
QR Code
Student Name
Teacher name
Text
User Field
User Picture
The order of these elements determine when they are rendered on the PDF. So, if you were to add a background image you would want this rendered first. On each element page, you can define its position in X & Y coordinate but if you don’t know how it works, don’t worry as you can drag and reposition elements afterwards.
When you are finished adding all elements, under the list of elements there is a link ‘Reposition elements’ will appear. You can drag and drop all elements into desired area to reposition them as well as edit their properties without having to go back to the edit custom certificate page.
Viewing Issued Certificates
To see all the issued certificates, just click the Custom Certificate activity on the course home page and click on the link ‘View X issued custom certificates’. Once you click on the link you can view the users who have been issued this certificate and also download their version of the certificate.
My Certificates Page for Students
For students who are participating in multiple courses on your Moodle platform, it would be not wise to go to individual course to download their certificates. So, the plugin author provided a separate page under the Profile page to view all certificates issues to a single user. The students can go to their profile and click ‘My certificates’ page to see all the certificates issued to them.
Verifying Certificates
Each certificate when issued is assigned a unique code. There may be cases where a possible future employer might want to check the authenticity of the certificate. So for professional learning courses you might want to use the verify certificate option. With the setting ‘Allow anyone to verify a certificate’ enabled any person with the verification link (including users not logged in) can verify a certificate.
Custom Certificate Templates
Site Admin can set site-wide certificate templates that can be used by users when adding a certificate to a course. To create a template log in as a user who has the appropriate permissions and visit ‘Site administration’ > ‘Plugins’ > ‘Custom certificate’ and click on the link ‘Manage templates’.
So, this is all about the Custom Certificate Moodle plugin and how you can use it in your Moodle course. Do you have any questions about it, please feel free to put them in the comments section below.
Top 5 things you didn't know Canva could do for you as Educator
Canva has grown from a design creation tool to a blended learning platform for teachers as well as students. In our previous post, we have seen how you can use the Canva Live feature and how you can use it for education. In this post, we will see top 5 things which you don’t know Canva could do for you as educator.
Canva initially started as a image creation tool has expanded its capabilities in video editing, audio editing, print designs, social media designs and many more areas. Moreover, the Canva for Education is free for teachers and students. Here are the top 5 things which are really exciting and latest addition in the Canva’s feature list.
1. Record your presentation
Do you know that you can record your lessons while delivering your presentations in Canva. Just head on to your presentation in Canva and click ‘Present and Record‘. It will open up the Canva’s inbuilt video recorder which can be helpful to sustain your information. You can record yourself explaining a topic or data, demonstrating a process, or showcasing one of your products. When you edit a design on your browser or Canva app on your desktop, use your webcam to record yourself. You can also choose to share your screen entirely or pick a particular window to capture.
Canva Present and Record feature
This is great to create asynchronous learning lessons for your students which they can watch over and over again. It will help in freeing your time to facilitate, answer questions and give feedback to your students.
2. Use Canva AI – Text to Image tool
Recently, Canva has added the capability to convert text into Image using the AI. You can enter your words describing the requirements of your picture and the AI tool will help you by creating many interesting pictures. You need to follow these steps to create your own AI generated images in Canva:
Start a design project in Canva.
Go to Sidebar and Click Apps and choose – Text to Image app.
Enter your image description in the text-to-image generator to convert it into an image.
On the bottom, please select your style – Painting, pattern, Photo, Drawing, 3 D etc.
Click Generate Image.
Canva Text to Image
3. Canva Docs
Recently, Canva has started taking on Google Docs with its new Canva Docs. The Canva Docs is marketed as a visual-first document creator. It allows you to design documents supercharged with videos, images, graphics, charts, and graphs.
Canva Docs
You can create your docs easily with drag and drop editor and hassle free data visualization tools. Click the + icon and search for tables, images, charts or any other graphic design your design needs. You can also add editable Design Blocks to make document banners and page dividers pop with custom text and graphics.
Drag-and-drop editor: No more formatting woes. The drag-and-drop editor makes adding and editing visual content easy.
Hassle-free data visualization tools: Make your data beautiful and easy to digest with features like checklists, tables, graphs, and charts.
Content at your fingertips: Tap the + button and search for tables, videos, images, or any graphic your Doc needs. Add editable Design Blocks to make document banners and page dividers pop with custom text and graphics.
Collaborate in real-time: Your team can view and edit your Doc in real-time – even if they don’t have a Canva account. Keep track of everyone with cursor colors and selections.
Add comments: Leave comments and assign tasks to your team, or simply react to their work with emojis and stickers.
Work from anywhere: Create, view, and edit your Docs wherever you are, with Canva available across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
Make it interactive: Share your Doc online, and your viewers can scroll through and interact with it – just like a website.
Track engagement with Insights: Built-in analytics shows how your audience interacts with your Doc. See who has viewed your Docs and when.
4. Magic Write Feature
Indeed Magic Write feature is one of the coolest feature in Canva introduced recently. It allows you to overcome the writers block by presenting you few sentences about the topic you want to write. Once again, it is an AI powered content generation tool.
Canva magic Write Feature
You can use it to write any kind of content from brainstorming, lesson plans, reports, etc. However, it is not yet available in Canva for Educators as it is available only for Canva Pro users. Also it can be used in the Canva Docs only as of now.
Just click the + icon in the Canva Docs and choose Magic Write feature. Enter a brief description of the content you want to write and Canva AI will do the rest of magic. It has been giving pretty wonderful results when I tried it for few sample content ideas.
5. Canva Docs To Decks
When you create your Canva Docs, you can easily convert it into an eye-catching presentation, instantly. Just click Docs to Decks to start creating your design and once you are done, just click the ‘Convert’ button on the top. You can choose your own design for the presentation and Voila!!!
You will get your wonderful Presentation ready from your text in few minutes without wasting lot of time on formatting and designing the presentation elements.
Canva Docs to Decks
Are you still using Canva to create awesome design and many more.. If not Do you need more reasons to try this.. After revolutionize the life of the graphic designers, Canva can really help the educators in making their online teaching more engaging and interactive.
