Activities overview

Categorisation

To support easier navigation, activities have been organised into six categories aligned with the Conversational Framework, each reflecting a key pedagogical approach:

Acquisition: Students build knowledge through content such as lectures, readings, or videos.
Inquiry: Students investigate and question topics to deepen understanding and critical thinking.
Discussion: Dialogue with peers and instructors encourages idea exchange and shared understanding.
Practice: Structured tasks help students apply learning and receive feedback to improve.
Collaboration: Learners work together to solve problems, complete tasks, and share outcomes.
Production: Students create outputs (e.g., essays, presentations) that demonstrate and consolidate their learning.

Note: These categories are flexible—activities may span multiple areas depending on their use within the course.

Activity	Category	Definition

Activity	Category	Definition
Bubblecloud	Practice	Students select answers from a set of options, which appear as bubbles. More popular responses are larger, visually highlighting group consensus.
Drag and drop table	Practice	It enables students to categorise information by dragging text into a table, helping with structured understanding.
Exam	Acquisition	It provides exam details (date, time, location), but does not support online exam functionality.
Explanatory text	Acquisition	The 'Explanatory text' activity provides a simple text box to highlight key information. It helps distinguish faculty-provided explanations from the main narrative text, ensuring clarity in course content.
File upload	Production	This activity allows students to submit files (e.g., essays, spreadsheets) for review or assessment.
Gap fill	Practice	It helps students create sentences with missing words by filling in blanks or using drop-down menus. Useful for reinforcing keywords and terminology.
Geotagging	Inquiry	It collects location-based responses and displays them on a world map, illustrating global perspectives.
Image drag and drop	Practice	It allows students to label images, reinforcing visual learning.
Image tile	Inquiry and Production	It can be used by students to upload images with comments, supporting visual learning and creative tasks like modelling data or introducing themselves.
Information box	Acquisition	Similar to the 'Explanatory text' but with a coloured background to visually highlight key information. Useful for categorising content (e.g., all assessment instructions in yellow).
Interactive table	Practice	Students enter responses in a table format, using free text, dropdowns, or checkboxes for organised learning.
Interactive video	Practice	It enhances videos with bookmarks, questions, and discussion points, pausing playback at key moments for student engagement.
Journal	Production	Students can use it as a private space to reflect on topics, visible only to them and their tutor. Tutors can provide feedback on entries, fostering personal and professional growth.
Learning outcomes	Acquisition and Inquiry (when the 'Feedback mode' is toggled on)	It displays intended learning goals at the start and end of a session, allowing students to self-assess their understanding.
Live class	Collaboration	This activity permits scheduling live online sessions with date, time, and link, connecting synchronous events with course content for a cohesive learning flow.
Matrix poll	Practice	As the 'Poll', it also allows students to vote on options and then displays the results in a chart or a table.
Ordering	Practice	Students rearrange a randomised list into the correct sequence, which is useful for process-based learning.
Participation grade	Acquisition	It is used to assess student engagement in a course with written feedback.
Poll	Practice	It enables students to vote on options and see results in various chart formats, useful for engagement and opinion-based questions.
Question	Inquiry, Practice, and Production	It allows structured question sets with rich-text responses, encouraging deeper reflection.
Quick answer check	Practice	Simple question-response format with immediate feedback, ideal for quick calculations in subjects like math or finance.
Reading	Acquisition	It allows course readings to be added as links, files, or references, consolidating all required readings in one place. Notes can be added to guide students.
Reveal	Acquisition	It requires students to click a button to reveal additional information, helping with self-testing and sequencing content.
Sticky note	Inquiry, Practice, and Collaboration	It is a virtual board where students post short responses on coloured sticky notes under designated columns. Great for brainstorming and visualising concepts.
Text reveal	Acquisition	It shows clickable words within a text display additional explanations when selected. Useful for defining terms without disrupting the reading flow.
Video player	Acquisition	It embeds Dacast, Youtube, Vimeo, Vimeo showcase, Panopto or Kaltura videos with optional start times or unlock codes for controlled access. Useful for illustrating concepts or case studies.
Video submission	Inquiry and Production	It allows students to upload videos, useful for introductions or assessment tasks.
Whiteboard	Inquiry and Collaboration	Students submit text responses to a vertical board and vote on peers' submissions. Higher-voted responses move to the top, encouraging collaborative idea development.
Wordcloud	Inquiry	It can be used by students to submit words in response to a prompt. Frequently chosen words appear larger, offering a visual representation of shared ideas.

To learn more about how these activities function from a student point of view and what they need to do with each of them, please visit the following article: 'Activity Completion Guide'.