Activity Design Across Spaces: Canvas Companion

Overview

When building your Activity Sequence Canvas, you need guidance for designing activities that work holistically across all three learning spaces. The Activity Design Across Spaces companion provides prompts and frameworks to help you design activities that leverage the unique affordances of physical, digital, and remote environments—ensuring equivalent learning opportunities regardless of where students participate.

Interactive Design Across Spaces Companion
Comprehensive design prompts for the “Design Across Spaces” row of the Activity Sequence Canvas

Open Activity Canvas Spaces Companion

Tip: Keep this open alongside the Activity Sequence Canvas for guidance on designing across In-Person Space, Digital Environment, and Remote Space.

Purpose

The Activity Design Across Spaces companion serves as your Canvas-building assistant, enabling you to:

  • Design activities that leverage the unique strengths of each space
  • Create equivalent learning opportunities across physical, digital, and remote contexts
  • Identify opportunities where spaces can enhance each other rather than compete
  • Ensure no student is disadvantaged by their participation mode
  • Design for integration rather than parallel experiences
  • Consider the unique assets each space brings to learning
  • Create seamless transitions between different participation modes
  • Match implementation complexity to your context and capabilities

Key Design Principles

Three-Space Design Framework

Instead of thinking in terms of “remote vs. on-site,” the new approach considers three distinct but interconnected spaces:

  1. In-Person Space - Physical environments with unique affordances
  2. Digital Environment - Online platforms and tools that enable connectivity
  3. Remote Space - Individual contexts with their own opportunities and constraints

Integration Over Parallel

The goal is to design activities where all three spaces work together to create learning experiences that would be impossible in any single space alone.

Asset-Based Design

Each space has unique assets that can enrich the learning experience for everyone, regardless of where they participate.