Have FUN Learning with Canva and Blooket!

        Whether in person or online, professional development has to take place. How do we promote engagement with learners? When considering the instructional design process, one must consider their learners first. It is important to determine WHO you will be teaching and then move into WHAT you’ll be teaching. After determining your WHO and WHAT, we then move on to the HOW. The HOW is where a training can be made or broken. 

According to The Essentials of Instructional Design: Connecting Fundamental Principles with Process and Practice, “the content and instructional activities used to convey that content can be organized into a curriculum” (Brown & Green, 2020). Once we have established the content of the curriculum, presenters can then organize instructional activities for the participants.

 There are many tools available to presenters when it comes to delivering content. Two tools that I have found to be the most effective and beneficial for both instructor and student are using Canva to create dynamic and engaging presentations and the use of instructional games to convey content and engage learners. 


Launched in 2013, Canva is a recently new computer application that allows anyone to create dynamic and interactive presentations. According to the Canva website, “Canva is an online design and visual communication platform with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere.” The Canva Premium program is free to teachers and allows access to their template library full of thousands of ideas. One way that I like to use the Canva program is to create a visually appealing presentation. I feel that, along with content, how the content is being visually presented is important. I also use the program to create a note-taking organizer to help learners follow along with the presentation and remain on track with our thinking. Canva has many more functions than just presentations. There are templates for flyers, brochures, infographics… the list is ENDLESS! The best part about this program is that it’s VERY user friendly and easy to navigate.  Click on the Canva banner above to get started!


        Another way to engage learners is through the use of instructional games. According to Brown and Green, “instructional games are a subset of instructional simulations.” (Brown & Green, 2020) Gredler points out that there are four different instructional purposes that instructional games support. The instructional purposes are: to practice and refine knowledge or skills, to identify gaps or weaknesses in knowledge or skills, to review or summarize content presented, and to illustrate and develop new concepts among concepts and principles (Brown & Green, 2020). There are many different purposes for instructional games, but some ways that I have used them in my professional experience are to practice and refine skills and knowledge, to illustrate or develop new concepts, and to review content being presented. One instructional game that I like to use in the classroom to hit all three of theses is Blooket. This interactive review game has multiple game formats that you can choose from and have students play. According to Blooket’s mission, “we are striving to change the way students learn. While reading and studying an oversized textbook is certainly one option, we like to opt for a far more fun alternative. However, Blooket isn't just fun, it's also incredibly effective. By creating memorable experiences with classroom content, students learn the information without even noticing (and without paper cuts)” (Blooket, 2023). In my professional experience, playing instructional games has shown to have students retain information as well as to learn social emotional skills, such as teamwork and good sportsmanship. 
        These programs are just two of the MANY instructional resources out there for educators and trainers.




References:
Blooket. (n.d.). https://www.blooket.com/
Brown, A. H., & Green, T. D. (2020). Part III: Creating Instruction: Planning, Designing, and Implementing the Intervention. In The essentials of instructional design connecting fundamental principles with process and practice (pp. 100–159). essay, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Canva. Canva. (n.d.). https://www.canva.com/


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