Overview of the Drawtivity site

The Drawtivity site is a web based authoring system for creating e-learning activities that involve the user/student drawing on an image. These activities then provide feedback on what the correct answer is and optionally a percentage score based on the accuracy of the users drawn response. The functionality provided by these activities is designed to be generic and suitable for many applications (e.g. drawing graphs, identifying anatomy, tracing routes on maps etc).

The Drawtivity site is also designed to support the development, reuse and adaptation of Open Educational Resources (OERs). Each activity created on the system is an OER (licensed with the Creative Commons attribution 3.0 Unported Licence) and each activity has a related publicly viewable page which offers details and notes on the activity and links to allow a copy of the activity files to be downloaded so the activity can be used by anyone who wishes to. If you register an account on this system you will also be able to make a copy of any activity into that authoring account where you can make amendments to adapt that activity for your own educational needs.

Download a copy of an activity

On an activity's public page there are three links available to download different versions of the activity files. Clicking on any of these links will open a browser window with options of what to do with the published ZIP file. You should select to save this ZIP file on to your laptop or PC.

To test a downloaded activity you will need to extract the downloaded zip file and then open the activity index.html file. Below is advice on selecting and using the appropriate activity download version:

1. Download activity files - the simplest version of the activity that contains a set of files which should be extracted for use stand alone or uploaded as a single stand alone activity in a VLE/LMS (e.g. Moodle). This version of the activity is ideal for carrying out initial testing.
2. Download activity embed files - a set of files designed to facilitate the embedding of the activity within resources created with authoring software such as Articulate Presenter, Wimba Create etc. In general with such authoring software the Drawtivity activity SWF file (which has a filename of the form "drawtivity345.swf") should be embedded into the resource materials and Drawtivity activity folder (which has a name of the form "drawtivity345") copied into the published files generated by the software. NB - this published zip file does not include an index.html file and so cannot be easily tested.
3. Download SCORM 1.2 activity files - a version of the activity files for use within SCORM 1.2 compatible VLEs/LMSs. In general the published zip file should be uploaded without being extracted into such a system. The activity will then report user scores and completion to the hosting system.

Make a copy of an activity for adaptation

When you have an account on the Drawtivity site and are logged in to that account, the activity's public page will display a link Copy this activity to adapt and republish. Clicking on this link will make a copy of this activity and add it to your authoring account. It will appear listed on your my activities page. You can then edit the settings, text, image and feedback to suit your own applications for this activity before publishing it for your own use.