In this exciting crossover episode, Chris Nesi teams up with Leena Marie Saleh (The EdTech Guru) for a detailed look into Canva’s latest educational innovations unveiled during Canva Create 2025. Whether you’re a teacher, instructional coach, or tech integrator, this episode is packed with transformative features and real classroom applications.

Key Themes and Highlights:

Canva Sheets: The Spreadsheet Reimagined

• A powerful new addition to the Canva suite—Canva Sheets brings AI-infused, visually pleasing spreadsheets to the classroom.

• Bulk Background Remover: Easily remove backgrounds from dozens of student photos at once.

• Bulk Create with Images: Mass-produce certificates, report cards, or newsletters by integrating images directly into your sheet.

• Magic AI Prompts: Skip the formulas—just describe your needs and let AI do the rest (e.g., calculating budgets, charting grades).

• Magic Insights: Auto-generate graphs, summaries, or positive student comments—great for data storytelling or end-of-year celebrations.

• Student Access: Available to students in districts where Canva’s Magic tools are enabled.

The All-in-One Visual Suite

• Create multi-modal projects within a single file: combine slides, spreadsheets, videos, documents, and websites.

• Use Case: Teachers can build unit plans with rubrics, grading sheets, lesson videos, and linked resources—all in one shareable design.

• Student Application: Portfolios that blend writing, multimedia, assessments, and visual elements in a single file.

Canva Code

• No coding experience needed! Generate interactive HTML-based tools like:

  • Flashcard games

  • Vocabulary matching activities

  • Countdown timers

• Use Cases:

  • Do-Nows & Exit Tickets

  • Interactive experiences (e.g., virtual art exhibits)

• Includes real-time code editing via voice or chat and seamless integration into other Canva designs.

Voiceover and Text-to-Speech Enhancements

• Record true voiceovers directly in Canva—no more video workarounds.

• Use AI-generated voices to read text aloud in different accents and languages (e.g., Spanish voice packs Alejandra and Sofia).

• Ideal for student presentations, podcasts, and accessibility support.

AI-Powered Speaker Notes

• Auto-generate speaking points from your presentation slides.

• Great for prepping lessons, webinars, or class presentations on the fly.

Assignments Hub

• Instantly generate quizzes from highlighted text in a lesson or document.

• New classwork dashboard allows for real-time monitoring of student progress (especially for educators without an LMS like Google Classroom).

Scrollables (a.k.a. Scrollytelling)

• Create animated, interactive timelines or diagrams that engage students through scroll-triggered movement and transitions.

• 🎯 Example: A digestive system walkthrough or a historical timeline using scroll-based animations.

• Superscript & Subscript support (finally!)

• Rich text highlighting in Docs

• Caption animations

• Volume balancing for videos

• Banner placement across all pages

• Enhanced collaboration (up to 50 collaborators per design)