If you're new here, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered! This guide will walk you through all the steps to get started with the Learning Design Studio and make the most out of its features. Let’s dive in and get your journey started!

Understanding the Basics

The Design Studio is a space for creating engaging and effective learning activity designs. It allows for combining, reordering, and repeating steps in your activities, which allows you to unlock new use cases. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced designer, this platform supports you in crafting courses, activities, and much more.

Start by exploring the Learning Design System, which outlines the overall framework. It provides clear guidance on designing learning activities, aligning objectives, and ensuring a smooth learning journey.

Design Studio: Step by Step

Step 1: Access the Design Studio

To get started, access the learning design system, and navigate to the Design Studio. You can do this by selecting to create a new activity, and using the 'Create Custom Learning Activity' option.

Once there, you’ll see a clean, user-friendly layout. You’ll notice a sidebar that acts as your primary navigation tool. 

Step 2: Explore the Sidebar

The sidebar is where the magic happens. Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll find:

1. Steps:

   This section shows all the available steps you can use to build your activity. The options here depend on your institutions licensing.

   

2. Settings:

   This is where you can define properties for your activity, such as its title, description, and more. Currently, you can set basic options like the title and description.

   

Step 3: Start Building Your Activity

Now it’s time to start building - once you have added a step, there will be a persistent table of contents on the side of the page that will show an overview and each individual step added. 

The overview

Within the overview page, you can see all the steps added to that activity. There you can also adjust and edit the activity as needed.

Adding Steps

• Click the ‘+’ button to add a new step to your activity.
• You can also add groups of steps, depending on your needs.

Built-in Logic and Feedback

The system includes safeguards to prevent the creation non-functional activities:

• • Steps cannot be repeated unless explicitly allowed (e.g., all feedback steps can be repeated).
    • Feedback Steps, such as Assignment Review, Peer Review, Self-assessment can all be repeated. 
  • Dependencies between steps are enforced (e.g., automated feedback requires a submission step).
  • The interface provides visual feedback if a step cannot be added or reordered due to logical constraints.

Reordering Steps

• Use drag-and-drop functionality to rearrange steps in your activity.
• The system will guide you if a step cannot be reordered due to logical constraints.

Deleting Steps

• Made a mistake? No problem! You can delete any unnecessary steps at any time.

Step 4: Save and Share

When you’re happy with your activity, hit save. Your work will be stored in the same space where you started, making it easy to access and share. From here, you can:

• Use the activity in your course.
• Create templates for future projects.
• Integrate it with your LMS (Learning Management System) through the activity picker.