What are Activities site templates?

Activities course templates allow you to streamline the learning experience for your students using the Lessons tool (re-labeled as Activities in the Activities Grid site template or Weeks in the Activities Menu site template).  With these templates, you can...

  • Add sub-sections and sub-pages to a main page, in order to better organize your content;
  • Create individual units (organized as weeks, chapters, topics, etc.) that can be found in the Tool Menu for easy navigation;
  • Hide access to pages or sections until specific dates have passed, or specific actions have been completed.

The Activities course templates utilize hidden tools in order to eliminate unnecessary and distracting access to certain features by students who will instead access content and activities via links within the Activities page(s) to specific items when appropriate. Hidden tools appear in italics to instructors.

Note: Tests & Quizzes must be visible to students to make feedback available to students.

Instructor and Student Views of an Activities Grid Site

Tool Menu

Instructor and Student view of Tool menu.

The Activities Grid template includes tools that instructors may want to use for developing online activities and content, such as Assignments, Forums and Resources.

Assignments and Forums are hidden from students by default and only visible to instructors.

Activities tool

The Activities tool in this template includes a grid, or table, that instructors may modify to add topical information and insert links to readings, discussions, assignments, and tests & quizzes created elsewhere in the site that coincide with particular class sessions or topics.

Instructor and Student Views of an Activities Menu site

Tool Menu

The Activities Menu template includes course tools found in the Activities Grid template with the addition of multiple instances of the Lessons tool, each labeled for a given Week in the course which are used to structure delivery of content and activities to students.

Some instances of the Lessons tool (Weeks) are deliberately hidden from student view. Instructors should hide and unhide these units as the semester progresses from each lesson page's Settings by checking or unchecking the option Hide this page from users (page will not appear in left margin).

Week 1 tool

For each instance of the Lessons tool (Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, etc.), instructors can modify the table/grid to add topical information and insert links to readings, discussions, assignments, and tests & quizzes created elsewhere in the site that coincide with particular class sessions or topics.