How to App Smash Canva Education and Soundtrap

We’re excited to share how innovative classrooms are combining Canva Education⁠(opens in a new tab or window) with Soundtrap for Education⁠(opens in a new tab or window), the popular audio creation platform by Spotify. With Soundtrap, students at all grade levels can easily create by selecting from over 20,000 high-quality beats including drum beats and basslines, by making podcasts with editable transcripts, or by connecting their own instruments. This app smash partnership brings together Soundtrap’s incredible auditory capabilities with the creative power of Canva’s visual communications platform. Together, teachers and students across subjects and grades can take their presentations, digital posters, class projects, podcasts, videos, and collaborative activities to the next level.

Here are 10 ways students are app smashing Canva Education and Soundtrap:

1. Short-form Podcast - Become a Podcast Star. With Soundtrap, podcast editing is easy. Students can edit their recordings as they would a text document. Pick a podcast theme such as “A Day in the Life at ABC Middle School” and finish up by adding a Canva podcast template⁠(opens in a new tab or window). Alternatively, students can record an “About Me” podcast and upload to their very own logo⁠(opens in a new tab or window) or family crest designed on Canva.

2. Design a Music Preview or Song Clip -Start by making a song using Soundtrap’s extensive collection of beats, loops, and instruments. Upload your song or soundbite⁠(opens in a new tab or window) (up to 250mb) to a Canva album⁠(opens in a new tab or window) cover using “Upload” in the Canva toolbar. Save it as an mp4 for your very own music trailer.

3. Create a Commercial - Master the art of persuasion! Guide students to create a Canva design featuring a place, student invention or another object. Students will record a commercial on Soundtrap and upload it to a Canva advertisement template⁠(opens in a new tab or window).

4. Practice a New Language - Hi. Ola. Bonjour! Encourage students to team up and record a conversation or go solo and talk about a dream travel destination, current event, or favorite activity. After, students upload their Soundtrap recording to a Canva design related to their presentation. Your students can even find templates in different languages by clicking on the gear icon, selecting “Account Settings” and selecting a different language. Oh la la!

5. Spoken Word - Spoken Word can be especially impactful in the classroom — it teaches communication skills, encourages introspection, fosters active listening, and reminds students they’re not alone. To spark a theme for their spoken word poem, guide students to explore Canva’s collection of inspirational quotes⁠(opens in a new tab or window). Pick one. Then, write and record your spoken word performance in Soundtrap. After recording and editing the interactive transcript in Soundtrap, ask students to create a Canva design. What image or graphic will best represent their ideas? How will they capture the audience with both visuals and audio?

Create inspiring poem that could express your ideas with Canva's Poem Generator⁠(opens in a new tab or window).

6. Photography Passion Project - Encourage students to explore their surrounding environment with photography. Students can upload their photos to one of these Canva photo collage templates⁠(opens in a new tab or window) and add a soundbite describing their creative process.

7. Creative Collaboration - Collaborate with classmates to create a song and design. Both Canva and Soundtrap have powerful collaboration capabilities. Learn how to collaborate with others in Canva, check out this free video⁠(opens in a new tab or window).

8. Make a StopMotion Video - Make a stop motion video in Canva using a video presentation template⁠(opens in a new tab or window) and add audio clips from both Soundtrap and Canva’s audio clip collection found in the “Elements” tab under “Audio”.

9. Review Science Terms - Science class often means learning lots of new words — from the periodic table⁠(opens in a new tab or window), to parts of a plant cell, to lab equipment. Create a catchy jingle to help memorize important terms. Add your Soundtrap jingle to a Canva design showing these terms.

10. Read-a-loud to improve fluency - Practice makes perfect. Encourage your emerging readers to improve their reading fluency by recording a short story on Soundtrap. Encourage readers to deepen their comprehension by importing their audio to a Canva book cover⁠(opens in a new tab or window) featuring the most important parts of the story.

When it comes to bringing your Canva creations to life with audio, students have more than one option. Here are three ideas worth exploring:

• Canva Audio clips - Did you know Canva has an extensive library of audio clips? Head over to the “Elements” tab and click “Audio” to see thousands of clips. They’re easily searchable by themes like “Happy”, “Pop”, “Summer”, “Kids”, “News”, “Party”, and “Children”.
• Audio Hack in Canva - Do you prefer to record your own voice directly within Canva? Teachers and students have been creatively hacking their own audio by recording a talking headshot and editing the headshot so it’s 100% transparent. The talking head disappears and you’re left with just the audio. Learn how to record yourself in Canva, check out this free video⁠(opens in a new tab or window).
• Import an audio file from another source like Soundtrap! - Looking for some funky remixed beats or recorded voiceover that’s as easy to edit as a text document? Here’s where platforms like Soundtrap can really take your audio to the next level. Learn how to upload images, videos and audio to Canva, check out this free video⁠(opens in a new tab or window), or explore the new feature beat sync⁠(opens in a new tab or window).
  

Summary

The Canva and Soundtrap app smashing partnership is an incredible step towards making learning more exciting for students. It’s especially promising for young people who struggle with written output challenges. With our tools, they’re empowered to demonstrate their learning through multiple pathways that include visual and auditory experiences. With Canva’s ever-growing collection of educational templates and Soundtrap’s extensive collection of beats and presets, the creative possibilities are endless!