Olivia teaches how to design digital birthday cards
Free flow at VIVISTOP is never tedious as every day is different with different activities, ideas and viviteers. We never know beforehand who is coming or which ideas and projects children have in mind for that particular day.
Likewise, it is never boring at our studio, because you always get to meet someone who inspires you or whom you can inspire.
One of VIVITA’s missions is to show kids that they can change the world and they have a say in the topics that matter to them. We involve kids into the real life projects and treat them equally with adults. To prove that we practice what we preach, we present you some of the activities children have self-initiated. In spring 2019 VIVITA members Mirtel and Susi shared their passion of urban culture in a sneaker design workshop; during the autumn of the same year Mia — a passionate anime character artist showed other VIVITA members the basic tips and tricks for creating these characters. One of our Vistas — Karolin — has ignited the passion for science also in other kids through many of her food science workshops — be it preparing ice cream with just ice and salt, making a colour changing lemonade or discovering the ultimate recipe for slime. VIVISTOP Telliskivi members have facilitated food science and kitchen miracles workshops with their peers from Seoul, South-Korea, Seoul.
We have noticed a clear contrast in the workshops facilitated by children and adults — when children are facilitating the workshop the energy in the room is completely different. Through conducting workshops children become more confident and peer-to-peer learning demonstrates to both the facilitator and participants alike that one does not need to be an adult to become someone capable of sharing their passion and knowhow.
Enter Olivia!
Olivia is a curious and energetic VIVITA member, who’s turning 9 years old this summer. Olivia likes dancing and spending time at VIVISTOP, because it’s the place where she has the ultimate freedom to build and craft. Her favourite class in school is PE and her favourite food is lasagne made by her mommy.
Olivia got the idea for the workshop one October afternoon while visiting VIVITA free flow. Our crew member Steveli was working on her computer using Canva platform and as curious as Olivia is, she came and asked a bunch of questions about it.
Canva is a graphic design platform, used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents and other visual content. The app includes templates for users to use. A drag and drop interface makes customising thousands of templates simple and easy.
So after a gentle interrogation, Olivia got really into it. And as Steveli and Olivia both are avid chefs, they decided to design some of their favourite recipes.
Olivia’s first design was called “chocolate lava cake”. She learned to use all the tools that Canva has to offer, also mastering the keyboard shortcuts for quicker design(ex. copy, paste, select all, delete, undo). Once she had finished her recipe design, she took her skills even further and created a poster for her escape room project and for some Code Week workshops that we arranged in our studio.
When we suggested her to share her passion for using Canva to design, she was thrilled to do it and said she in fact had already taught some of her friends to use the Canva platform.
We started the workshop preparations in February. Olivia chose the topic to make the design process easier. Olivia went through all the tools by creating one prototype-design for the workshop and drafted the workshop agenda. An important part of the workshop, that Olivia requested, was show and tell — where each participant would introduce and explain the designs they created.
Workshop day
We started the preparations on Zoom already one hour earlier — setting up the cameras and familiarising the young workshop facilitator with screen share functionalities etc. Once all the participants were online, we did a quick round of introductions, which was followed by Olivia’s presentations on Canva. Creating and learning went super-well. The workshop participants were actively engaged — listening to and asking questions from Olivia.
Once Olivia finished introducing the various tools of Canva, everyone had 15 minutes to create a digital birthday card for their friend. While they were designing, Olivia asked them to share the screens to see the process. The feedback was great — everyone really enjoyed the workshop and were thrilled to learn an easy to use tool that has many free templates, elements and images to use for one’s design.
Text: Steveli Säde
Photos: VIVITA Estonia
