Magic Media in Canva to Generate Images

published by Mike Neumire on 6/13/2024

Artificial intelligence is creating all sorts of new creative learning opportunities, when used thoughtfully. One category of generative AI worth exploring is image generation. Education will be slow to catch up with all these great innovations and platforms that develop around them, but one tool we can put in front of students right now is Magic Media by Canva. When working on a Canva design, students can pull up the Magic Media app to generate images that are only limited by their imagination. There are so many interesting and impactful applications for a tool like this. Watch the video below to see how this app works and then read on for some ideas to get you started. 

At its most basic, Magic Media can serve as a variation of any activity where students create a "non-linguistic representation" of some kind, like a drawing or collage. This is a high impact strategy for vocabulary acquisition. At the end of class, consider having students generate a couple images to represent a vocabulary term, a big concept, or any other important takeaway from a lesson.  This is a very quick closure activity that helps students think about what is essential enough about the learning to become part of the visual description. 

You could also use this tool as an engine for many game-like experiences:

1. Telestrations - give each student a vocabulary word that they have to represent by generating an AI image. Then, those images are passed to the next student who must guess the word and/or describe the image. This is then passed to the next student who uses it to generate a new image. This pattern is repeated until the final round, where students can compare where they started to where they ended up. 

2. Apples to Apples - AI could generate images and text-based prompts for a lively game of Apples to Apples! Have students generate a variety of images based on a certain topic or standard to "build their deck" and then play them in response to a prompt for each round. 

3. Pictionary - this example is pretty straight-forward. Take it up a notch by having more complex answers and requiring students to generate and show three images to provide more context.

4. Connections - replace words with pictures! Students could generate images that would be used in a game of Connections. Instead of having to organize 16 words in 4 groups of 4, they could organize pictures! This would essentially be a fun twist on a Jigsaw. 

We've always known about the value of non-linguistic representations like drawing for learning. Now we have an engine for creating complex, beautiful images with just a few words in just a few seconds. How will you tap into their value?