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Japanese students and teachers rejoice with added vertical text support in Canva for Education

Announcement posted by Canva 15 Jun 2020

Popular online design platform, Canva, has today announced the release of vertical text, which is a huge coup for the Canva for Education offering as it further empowers educators and students to use the language’s two orientations to create strong visual impact.


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Canva for Education is a free educational platform tailored for teachers and students to build visual literacy in students and facilitate project-based learning. Georgia Vidler, Canva’s Director of Product, explains the addition of vertical text ensures students and teachers can fully immerse themselves in the platform to create content that honours the traditional Japanese style as well as Western style.


“During the schooling years, students dedicate an enormous amount of time to learning and perfecting not one, but three different alphabets. Whether it’s a novel, school text or essays, traditionally these are often in a vertical format. As Japan continues to be one of our fastest growing markets, the addition of our new vertical text feature means we are one step closer to becoming the go-to platform for all project-based learning in every school in Japan,” stated Vidler.


Canva for Education provides teachers and students with:

  • Many of Canva’s paid subscription features - included within Canva for Education absolutely free - includes access to millions of premium images, fonts, videos and templates

  • access to an all-new collaboration space for the whole class to design and discuss in one place

  • folders to manage content and to keep track of progress

  • version history

  • animations to help bring student creations to life

  • more educational-specific content

  • a review workflow for teachers to give students feedback

  • peace of mind as Canva for Education is COPPA and FERPA compliant

  • a whole new raft of add-ons perfectly aligned to everyday learning including Google Drive, Google Slides, YouTube, Giphy, Websites

  • integrations with Google Classroom and Google sign-in methods for class setup.


Kazuko Yonekawa, a teacher at two schools in Tokyo, has used the Canva platform to develop flyers, message cards and posters to engage her students.


“Every time I log into Canva I am wowed by the enormous selection of templates, layouts and colours. It is one of my main sources of inspiration to make content that is more fun for my students. I am also very excited to use the vertical text feature - a welcomed feature that aligns with standard learning practices here in Japan,” explained Ms Yonekawa.


Yoshio Hoso, teacher at Waseda University Honjo Senior High School, also explains how beneficial Canva is to teachers.


“I spend a lot of time creating handouts for my student and sometimes I spend too much time on the design element of the handout! However, this is where Canva plays an integral role - no special skills are required and I can be inspired by the plethora of templates available to me. 


“I also love the new vertical text feature, it allows me to create content in the traditional Japanese format. Plus, Canva has really opened my eyes to all the different engaging content I can create for my students - from posters, through to videos, presentations and web pages. Canva is definitely my go-to,” concluded Mr Hoso.   


Canva has also provided an integration with Google for Education, which has also recently launched a Japanese version of the Chromebook App Hub, to further streamline access to all classrooms. 


Emma Fish from Google for Education, stated the collaboration was a welcome addition to the organization's education suite. 


We are very excited to have Canva as a Google for Education Partner and include Canva in the Chromebook App Hub. Enabling the use of Canva for Education provides a seamless, free experience and unleashes the creative potential of students on Chromebooks. 


Canva has deeply integrated with Google across the platform including Google sign-in, integrations with Google Maps and Google Drive, and optimizing for touch Chrome devices. There are 40 million teachers and students worldwide actively using Google Classroom. Canva for Education enables teachers to import classroom class lists to manage their classes globally, and has also enhanced classroom collaboration through the development of a dedicated Google Classroom share button,” said Ms Fish.


Schools are encouraged to get started and register their free Canva for Education account at: https://www.canva.com/ja_jp/education/


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Notes to the editor:


Video to showcase how simple the conversion to vertical text is using the Canva platform


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