- Ready to create your own
animated digital countdown timer? I'm gonna show you how to create an amazing countdown
timer that you can use for the start of your
online class to welcome your students into the
virtual classroom with ease. If you haven't done so already, don't forget to click
the subscribe button, turn on the bell notification so you don't miss any of my videos on online teaching and education that come out every single week. If this is our first time meeting, hi, I'm Ashlee Espinosa and I've helped hundreds of educators transition to the online
teaching platform. I'm so excited to help you take the frustration
out of remote teaching. Let's dive straight into Canva. Now I'm gonna put my affiliate link below if you wanna check it out for free. If you have the pro version, then I'm gonna show you some
tips and tricks along the way. So, two different ways
that you can do this. First way is the way where if
you want to make this a video and you want to turn it into an MP4 and slide it right into
your Google presentations, your Google slides, your
keynote presentations, whatever slides that
you use for your class, this is how you do that first. And then I'm gonna show you the fancy way, the way that I do it, and show you my newest one next. So, all we're gonna do
is go up to the top right where it says create a design. Click create a design. We're gonna type in video, and then click the video element. After we do that we're gonna
open up a blank video page. Now then go over to the left-hand side. We're gonna click on elements. Couple of ways you can do this, but let's check this out first. You can put in timer or countdown timer. And here's the one that
I use, and it's free, this black one right down over here. Now click on that, it'll add it in. And if you're wanting
something different and fancy, you know, scroll through here, see if there's something
that works better for you. You could even type in countdown timer and search and see what comes up. If you have the pro account, here's a little upgraded tip, go to the left-hand side
where it says videos and you can search timer
or countdown timer. And there is a ton of really cool ones here as well from all kinds of links and all kinds of styles. But they're all pro, so you do have to have the
pro version to use those. So I'm gonna go with the free version. This is the one I use. So, after we do that, click on it and we wanna crop it. So click the little scissor tool at the top left-hand corner. After you click that, you can make this whatever time you like. So you can just drag and drop
it from the left-hand side. I do five minutes. That's just because I'm
teaching college students, and when I jump into the class I start a couple of minutes early. That way if they come in early, they're seeing what I'm gonna show you that I do on my slides
at the very beginning versus just me starting class on time and I'm just waiting around. Also why I like to do five
minutes is if I start this a couple minutes before the
class starts at 8:00 AM, and I jump on a couple minutes
early and get this started, that gives them two or three minutes after the actual start time
of class to be welcomed in before I jump on and get started. The virtual world is totally different. So, it kinda brings them in
with ease and I'll show you how I do it as well in
my classes here in a sec. So, scooch it down to whatever you need, two minutes, three minutes. If you're doing this for a break, you could do the full 10, whatever that you need it for. Maybe you're giving them an assignment and you wanna give them
a little countdown timer, whatever you need. So, let's go with the full 10, why not. Drag this open to the entire space. Great, there's your full video timer, simple, easy, done. Go up to the top right
where it says download. Click download, and you want
MP4 video, click download, and that's gonna download to your desktop and you can take that MP4
video and then you can just insert it into however
you have your slides. That way, when you go to present it at the beginning of your class, you already have your
slides in order ready to go, if that works for you,
by sharing your screen. Now, lemme show you what I like to do. But before I do that, let me know down in the comments below, what is your favorite way to break the ice for your online class? Let me know in the comments. I can't wait to see what
you come up with and share, but let me show you kind of what I do now. So what I do is I'm
gonna go back to Canva. I'm gonna click create a design. And I'm just going to
open like presentation, whatever comes up for you. Normally the top one is presentation. Click presentation, like
you're creating a slide if you use Canva for slides, blank page. What I do is I'm gonna first
go back over into my elements. I wanna grab that timer, and I use this one for everything. And I don't want it to be the full size, so I'm actually gonna delete it and then just kind of
do it small on the side. I'm gonna make it small so it's not so big because when they pop onto my Zoom class, I don't want it to be
counting down like huge in their face, giving them anxiety. So I'm gonna put it in the
top left-hand corner here. I'm gonna go over to the left-hand side, I'm gonna click background. And I like to do black, by just clicking the black color. Now you can click anything
else, if you want it to be, you know, in the pattern
or design of your class or the feeling if you teach kids or if there's a theme that day, you know, pick whatever you want. You could play around
at the timer design too like I showed you earlier, but I like black, simple, clean, sleek, and I'm teaching college adults. So this kind of just works for my vibe. Then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go over to the left-hand
side, pick some text, and I wanna give them a
little bit of instruction at the beginning of class. So, you can pick any of these
fancy ones you want down here. I'm just gonna go simple
for the sake of time. I'm just gonna click subheading. I'm gonna make it big, and I'm going to type in "Welcome". And I'm gonna show you my
exact one here in a second, so stand by and wait for it. I'm gonna show you how I do it first. I'm gonna click welcome. And I'm gonna put that
on the right hand side. Then I'm going to go
a bit down below that, get another text and I'm gonna give them some instructions that
they need for that class. And I update this as needed. So maybe it is grab your textbook. and notes. And then I'm gonna actually
click on this and I'm gonna go to the top hand corner
up here where it says list, and I can do bullets,
or I like to do numbers. So I'm gonna do number one. Then I'm going to make another line here, automatically gives you the second one. And you can do some other
information or instruction that you want them to have ready. And I'll normally do three, two or three. So instruction here and
then another instruction that's specific for
that day and that class. As many as you want, then you can, maybe make
this little smaller. Then what you can do below
that is give them anything else that you want them to know for that class. Like today, we're going to be focusing on, musical theater in 1950s,
'cause that's the genre, that's what I teach. Or whatever we're working
on in that class today, you could give them a topic
of, you know, reminding you, this is what we're working on today. That's what I do. Now let me show you my design. This is what I'm
currently using right now. So you can see, I have the timer up here on the left-hand side. I have some cool, funky
text that says "Welcome, "I'm excited you're here." Just a great way to do it
without my face being on there. And this is what I do for
my again, college adults, grab your coffee or water, take a second to get set up for class, whatever that may be for them, and take a few slow, deep breaths. And I have a little arrow pointing to it over here on the side. And this is how I do it. When I jump into my class, I'll start a few minutes early, go up to the right-hand side. I will click the present button. Standard is fine, I will click present. And this is exactly what
you would see on my screen when you pop into my zoom class. So you see as you come on that the student isn't rushing, that they're like, oh, okay, great, I'm here. It's on time. But I have a couple of minutes to do the things that I didn't do
when I rushed to jump on. Especially because I teach
a lot of 8:00 AM classes. This is calming their
anxiety and their nerves and easing them into the
virtual classroom versus, you know, just popping
on and seeing my face. It's also a great time that
they can talk to each other. I play music, but it's just
a great way to start class. I'll also create another one very similar to this for a break. So if the class is very long, I'll pop something up for
a break so they can see it. And I don't have to jar them
by saying two minutes left, one minute left, we're
starting in two seconds. Great, easy way to do it. If you need more help
with online teaching, be sure to check out the
playlist that I've got here for you next, which is online
teaching tips and tricks. I will link it in the
description box below for you. And as always, please
don't forget to click the subscribe button and
turn on the bell notification so you get notified every
time I create new videos here on YouTube every single week about online teaching and education. Thanks for watching and I'll
see you in the next video.
