Canva

Canva is a graphic design tool for the web, Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows. Users create an account (with an email address or by linking their Google or Facebook account) and then follow a tutorial that shows them how to get started and how to use the tool's many features. Users can upload their own images and create their own layouts or choose from a selection of thousands of built-in images and design templates (some of which are available for in-app purchase). Features abound: You can adjust brightness and contrast, resize images, overlay images with text and colors, and more. Once users have finished creating, their designs are automatically saved to the cloud and are accessible from the user's homepage in the app or on the website. Users can then export their creations via email, as Facebook posts, or via Twitter, and they can download their images in JPEG, PNG, or PDF format. You'll need a stable internet connection to use Canva successfully. 

Canva's premium features are available for free to verified teachers (who register with their school email address) and their students. Plus, Canva has special content geared toward educators, including blog posts from teachers and students, special tutorials and templates geared toward teachers, plus ideas for using Canva in the classroom. Teachers can add students to their classrooms, create assignments, receive assignments, and review and approve work. Students within a classroom can collaborate on designs in real time (again, with a stable internet connection).

Canva is especially great for novices who want to create eye-catching graphics to print or post online but don't have much (or any!) graphic design experience. advanced users might look elsewhere. Helpful pop-ups walk users through the features, and it's appealing to discover how to use the app's many features to do (and undo) things with ease. This is definitely graphic design with very stylish training wheels, which might be all you need. It's a great way to make something that looks good fast, and it seems like the perfect tool for adding captions to images for simple sharing via social media. The flexible features for creation and for export make this an excellent tool for helping even the most novice designer create and share slick, simple graphic design. As a teaching tool for graphic design, look elsewhere: Canva doesn't have as many tools or as much flexibility as Photoshop or Illustrator, and users won't get in-depth instruction about principles of what makes good design. That being said, this is an engaging, powerful tool for making stellar images for print and digital use.