Canva
For my individual app review, I have decided to explore the use of the web application “Canva”, a multimedia graphic design tool that allows users to create various designs using a combination of images, shapes, and words (Canva, n.d.). Canva comes pre-set with a variety of templates and free images that users can utilize to create digital projects such as posters, journals, cd covers, presentations, and infographics (Canva, n.d.). Over the past several years, I have relied on Canva to create an assortment of posters and projects to exemplify my understanding of topics. I find it is easy to and would be a perfect tool for students to use in the classroom. I love that they have pre-made templates already designed to the size of what you need. If I were an instructor, I would encourage students to possibly use the Instagram sized template and have them create a post on a subject. As a teacher, it is important to engage students and use technology that is relevant to the student.
Created by Heather Gustavsson using Canva in Lab #4
Through this website, users can create their own multimedia design object as it includes many of the multimedia learning principles. These principles were developed by Richard E. Mayer, the author of the book “The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning”. The first one evident through Canva is the Multimedia Principle, where “learning with words and pictures is more effective than learning with words alone” (Butcher, 2014, p. 174). If a teacher wanted students to recall something in the future, they could use Canva to create a poster or brochure combining words and pictures together. This also ties into the Split Attention principle when creating a design object, one must “avoid materials that require learners to split their attention between, and mentally integrate, multiple sources of information” (Ayres & Sweller, 2014, p. 206). It is more effective to create a design with the text and images combined as opposed to separate as it forces people to remember the information from another source and then apply that to the new source. The next multimedia learning principle is Signaling. In chapter 11 of the handbook, Van Goh (2014), discusses how a design should explicitly indicate the key parts you want the learner to grasp (p. 206). An example could be highlighting, bolding, underlining, or change the font of a word to make it stand-out. On Canva, they utilize bolding by creating categories for people to find the templates, and when creating a design, you can alter the text size, colour, transparency, and font. Furthermore, this ties into the Spatial Contiguity principle as it suggests “words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each other on the page or screen” (Mayer & Fiorella, 2014, p. 280). Through Canva, you can easily re-configure both text and images on the same page to keep information concise and together. The final multimedia learning principle exhibited in Canva is Collaboration. The “share” features on Canva allows users to work on a design with one or more people, or simply share their creations with others. One thing to note is that in chapter 23 of the handbook, the collaboration principle is only effective if the task is cognitively challenging (Kirschner et al., 2014, p. 547). If a user considers all 5 of these principles when creating their graphic design, they will be creating a more effective design tool that supports cognitive development.
Below, I used the University of Western Ontario’s education evaluation rubric to evaluate Canva as a multimedia design tool. Feel free to click on the rubric to see how I assessed the app in more specific categories. Overall, the app has a lot of positive aspects, however, the concern lies with the privacy of user’s information and where it is stored. I read through the privacy policy and they do store your information provided when registering for an account, so I believe more research is necessary before allowing use in the classroom. Other than privacy concerns, this application has a lot of positive benefits and could be an excellent resource for students in regard to multimedia design!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O-BFNoeB_kZEeBMH1ffiiHPBzGBX46O3/view?usp=sharing
– Ms. G 🙂
Reference List
Ayres, P., & Sweller, J. (2014). The Split-Attention Principle in Multimedia Learning. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 206-226). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139547369.011
Butcher, K. (2014). The Multimedia Principle. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 174-205). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139547369.010
Canva. (n.d). Homepage. Canva. Retrieved June 15, 2020, from https://www.canva.com/
Canva – Design Anything. (2019, December 9). Introducing Canva – Graphic Design Has Changed [Video]. https://youtube.com/watch?v=CE7KTszVCRU&feature=youtu.be
Kirschner, P., Kirschner, F., & Janssen, J. (2014). The Collaboration Principle in Multimedia Learning. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 547-575). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139547369.027
Mayer, R. (Ed.). (2014). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139547369
Mayer, R., & Fiorella, L. (2014). Principles for Reducing Extraneous Processing in Multimedia Learning: Coherence, Signaling, Redundancy, Spatial Contiguity, and Temporal Contiguity Principles. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 279-315). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139547369.015
Rubric for eLearning Tool Evaluation by Lauren M. Anstey & Gavan P.L. Watson, copyright 2018 Centre for Teaching and Learning, Western University is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Van Gog, T. (2014). The Signaling (or Cueing) Principle in Multimedia Learning. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 263-278). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139547369.014
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Good job!