If you’ve run a CPD session over Zoom and tried to collect ideas from everyone on the call, you’ll know the built-in whiteboard tools are often limited, or missing altogether unless your school pays for the right Zoom plan. This gets harder still when staff are split across sites, working from home, or joining a trust-wide session from several schools at once.
Canva has a straightforward alternative sitting inside a tool many schools already use for other things. It lets you create a shared whiteboard, send colleagues a link, and watch their ideas appear in real time, whether they’re sitting together in the staff room or dialling in from home.
Here’s what it does and how to set one up for your next staff meeting.
What a Canva Whiteboard Actually Does
A Canva whiteboard is a blank collaborative canvas that anyone with the link can open and add to. Rather than everyone speaking over each other on a call, colleagues can type notes, add sticky notes, and organise their own thinking on the same page at the same time. It works well for staff CPD, subject leader meetings, or any INSET session where you want everyone’s input rather than just the loudest voice in the room. It’s included with a standard Canva account, so there’s nothing extra to pay for if your school already uses Canva for Education.
Setting Up Your Whiteboard
In Canva, click Create a New Whiteboard. Add any starting text, questions, or prompts you want your colleagues to respond to before you share it with the group.
Once your whiteboard is ready, click Share in the top corner. By default, it’s set so only you can access it. Click the small arrow next to that setting and change it to “Anyone with the link can edit.” Copy the link and you’re ready to send it out, by email, in your CPD slides, or straight into the Zoom chat.
The link Canva generates is long and awkward to read aloud or copy down from a slide. If you’d rather give staff something simpler, click Create Custom Link and type in something short and memorable. Save it, copy it, and put that version on your CPD slide instead. It’s far easier for colleagues to type in than clicking through a long web address, and useful if you’re asking people to join without a clickable link in front of them.
What Your Colleagues Will See
Once someone opens the link, they’ll see the whiteboard with Canva’s usual editing tools down the side. Drawing tools and shapes are there if anyone wants them, but the sticky note button is the one most useful for CPD. Colleagues choose a colour, add a note to the board, and type in their idea or response. Everyone can see what everyone else has added, so it becomes a genuinely shared space rather than a one-way document only you can edit.
There are a few extra features worth using once ideas start appearing. Notes can be dragged around and grouped, so if several colleagues raise similar points, you can cluster them together on the board. Reactions, a thumbs up or a heart, let staff show which ideas resonate without needing to type a comment. A comment feature is also there if someone wants to add more detail to a specific note.
A Word on Access
“Anyone with the link can edit” means exactly that, so treat the link the same way you’d treat any shared staff document. Send it directly to colleagues rather than posting it somewhere public, and check it isn’t sitting in a shared drive or group that people outside the intended meeting can see. Once the session has ended, changing access back to view-only closes that off completely.
Closing the Session
Once the meeting has finished and you don’t want anyone adding or removing content, go back to Share and change the setting from “can edit” to “can view.” The board is fixed from that point onwards. Nobody can add or delete anything, but the record of what was discussed stays there for reference, and it’s useful for any colleague who missed the session to see what was covered.
If you want a permanent copy outside Canva, download the whiteboard as an image or as a PDF and save it wherever you keep your CPD records.
Classroom Application: Three Steps to Try This Week
Set the board up before you meet. Add your CPD questions to the whiteboard before the session starts, so staff can begin adding ideas the moment they join rather than staring at a blank page.
Use a custom link for anything you read aloud. If you’re going to say the link out loud or put it on a slide, take the extra thirty seconds to create a custom link. It saves colleagues fumbling with a long string of letters and numbers.
Save a copy before you lock it. Download the finished whiteboard as a PDF once the session ends. It’s a quick way to build a record of staff voice for your CPD file, without any extra typing up afterwards.
How to Create and Share a Canva Whiteboard With Your Team (Step by Step)
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