4. Activities

Goal: understand the seven activity types before testing them one by one.

Prerequisite: flow 2 done — the outline holds the activities you are about to fill in.

An activity is one unit of content a learner works through. The outline holds them; this section is about what is inside each one.

The seven types

Type	What the learner does	Graded
Lesson	Reads and watches content	no
Quiz	Answers questions, gets a score	yes
Survey	Answers questions, no score	no
Assignment	Submits work for an instructor to grade	yes
Forum	Posts and replies in a discussion	yes
Meeting	Joins a live Zoom or Teams session	no
External Course	Plays an imported package (SCORM, xAPI, cmi5, AICC)	depends on the package

What they all share

How you open one. In the outline, in Edit mode, use the Add content action on the activity’s row. Each type has its own editor, but they are built the same way: a header with the title, instructions and an optional image, then the type-specific body.

How they save. No activity has a Save button. Everything you change is written into the course through the same pipeline as the rest of the workspace, and the same edit lock applies — one person at a time. If you want proof a change landed, reload.

Where they live. Activities are stored inside the course, not as separate records. That is why removing an activity from the outline removes it entirely.

Moving between activities

Every activity editor carries a navigator on the right edge — a small vertical rail with a previous arrow, the position indicator, and a next arrow.

It is how you walk the whole course without going back to the outline. Three rules decide whether you see it at all:

• It only renders when the course has more than one activity.
• It is desktop-only — below a large viewport it is not rendered, so on a phone the outline is the only way between activities.
• Previous is disabled on the first activity, Next on the last. They do not wrap.

Clicking the position indicator expands a panel listing every activity in the course with its type, the current one marked Editing:

• Clicking a row jumps straight into that activity’s editor.
• A search field appears only once the course has more than eight activities.
• The footer reads N of M, or Showing N of M while a search is filtering.
• Clicking outside the panel closes it.

What to check

• The count matches the number of activities in the outline, and the position matches where you actually are.
• Next from the last activity and Previous from the first do nothing — no wrap, no error.
• Jumping to another activity does not lose unsaved edits in the one you are leaving.
• The navigator disappears on a course with a single activity, and at phone width.
• The search appears at nine activities and not at eight.
• Rows are reachable and openable by keyboard.

Moving blocks, the sidebar and batch actions

Lesson, Quiz and Survey share one editing surface. A lesson stacks blocks; a quiz and a survey stack questions — but they are the same component underneath, so everything below works identically in all three. Only the wording changes.

Moving one block

Every block carries a header with the same four controls:

Control	What it does
Move up / Move down	shifts the block one position
Duplicate	copies it in place
Delete	removes it

The arrows are the keyboard-reachable way to reorder — Tab to one, press Enter. Test that path; it is the one that gets skipped.

The sidebar

A panel on the side lists every block with its position number, its variant name and a live thumbnail. It is titled Content Blocks in a lesson and Questions in a quiz or survey, and it collapses to a Show blocks manager button.

Control	What it does
Grid / list toggle	two densities for the same list
Drag handle on a card	drag to reorder
Clicking a card	jumps to that block in the editor
Add Block / Add Question	adds from the sidebar
Collapse	hides the panel

Selecting several at once

Hovering a card reveals a checkbox — that is the entry point, and it is easy to miss because nothing is visible until you hover. Tick two or more and a batch bar appears above the list.

Batch control	What it does
Select All	selects every block
Deselect all	clears the selection
Move up / Move down	moves the whole selection together
Delete	removes every selected block

What to check

• Move up on the first block, and move down on the last, do nothing rather than wrapping.
• The arrows work by keyboard alone.
• Dragging in the sidebar reorders the editor too — the two views never disagree.
• The index numbers renumber after any move.
• A batch move keeps the selected blocks in their relative order.
• Batch delete removes exactly the selection, nothing adjacent.
• The count in the sidebar header matches the number of blocks.
• All of it survives a reload.

Grading settings

Quiz, Assignment and Forum share the same grading block. The same fields, the same defaults:

Setting	Default	What it does
Points	0	How much this activity is worth
Require a minimum score to continue	off	Blocks progress until the learner passes
Minimum score	80	The pass mark, in percent
Attempts	3	How many times the learner may try
Show answer feedback	off	Reveals the per-answer feedback after submitting
Show review	off	Lets the learner review their submission
Show correct answer	off	Reveals the right answer

Two of these are worth extra attention, because they change what the learner can do rather than what they see: minimum score to continue and attempts.

Deadlines

Assignment and Forum share a deadline model with three modes:

Mode	Meaning
No deadline	open forever
Fixed date	a specific date and time
Time limit	a window counted from enrollment, in days, weeks or months

What to check across every type

• The title you type in the editor is the title shown in the outline.
• Instructions with accents and formatting survive a reload.
• A setting changed in the editor is still set when you come back to it.
• Removing the activity from the outline removes its content too.