Creating a CLIO Activity

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Overview

Activities are created through easily customizable activity templates, called Activity Types. You can make your own, or utilize the ones that are provided. The CLIO web application suite comes pre-installed with seventeen Activity Types that are designed specifically for use in an informal education or exhibit context. These activities are coded and stored as JSON files for use within CLIO, but we provide word processor templates to assist with collaboration during the development and drafting process.

Define the Activity

All CLIO activities, regardless of their Activity Type, contain many of the same configuration settings. These are used to configure the screen and load the correct content. By defining this information, we can begin to draft more specific activity content.

Property	Description	Expected Parameters
Audience	This is the audience that this activity that this will be a part of.	This field requires that you use the unique system name for the audience, as opposed to it’s friendly name. This is defined within the @Audiences.json file.
Grouping – Section	These are arbitrary descriptions for the activities to add additional organization.	Plain Text
Grouping – Exhibit	These are arbitrary descriptions for the activities to add additional organization. Exhibits are contained within Sections.	Plain Text
Configuration – Hidden	This will hide the activity from being displayed in the Facilitator Mode list of Activity Menu. This is helpful for creating activities to include in Meta activities that you do not want displayed for single selection.	"true" or "false"
Configuration – Theme	CSS theme to be used while this activity is active.	Name of CSS file in 'themes' folder, with "theme_" omitted.
Info – Title	Name of the activity. This is displayed in the header bar on the Activity page. Note: On smaller screens, titles over twelve characters long may be cut off.	Plain Text
Info – Preview	Preview image shown while CLIO is in Exhibit Mode.	Image File
Info – Description	Description of the activity.	Rich Text
Info – Video	Introductory video to be displayed within the Activity menu.	Video File
Attributions	List of attributions for included copyrighted works.	Plain Text
Acknowledgements	List of acknowledgements for content creators.	Plain Text

Choose an Activity Type

Activity Types range in complexity and customization options. There are simple interactive activities with very little customization, as well as more complex activities that can be extensively customized to assist in the creation of a narrative. Simple interactive games like quizzes, flashcards, and tile matching are included for younger audiences, while other activities like timelines and annotated images enable older audiences to have a more in-depth informational experience.

Annotated Image

The Annotated Image activity type can provide additional context to an image through the inclusion of ‘Look Closer’ buttons. Each ‘Look Closer’ button can display open to display rich text, an image gallery, or a video.

Read More: Creating an Annotated Image Activity

Binary Quiz

The Binary Quiz activity type can be customized to prompt users to select from a binary set of choices with correct and incorrect responses.

Read More: Creating a Binary Quiz Activity

Card Match

The Card Match activity type is designed to draw connections between two sets of objects, images, or ideas by trying to match cards.

Read More: Creating a Card Match Activity

Collection Gallery

The Collection Gallery activity type displays a list of objects, such as collections artifacts, that opens a full-screen gallery of images of that object with captions. This activity is designed to draw connections between a museum’s “home” collections and the objects on display in outreach programming.

Read More: Creating a Collection Gallery Activity

Flash Cards

The Flash Cards activity type displays topic cards that can be flipped to view a brief description, or opened to look at a longer rich text description.

Read More: Creating a Flash Card Activity

Image Comparison

The Image Comparison activity type can be used to compare, contrast or overlay one image over another, allowing a user to interactively decide how much of each image they would like to see. You can also add ‘Look Closer’ buttons to highlight specific areas of the image.

Read More: Creating an Image Comparison Activity

Image Gallery

The Image Gallery activity type is a collection of images combined into a gallery that users can look through, with brief descriptions for each image.

Read More: Creating an Image Gallery Activity

Media Dichotomous Key

The Media Dichotomous Key activity type presents a gallery of images to the user and a series of questions. Using the images, they answer to the best of their ability and, when there have been enough questions asked to reach a conclusion, they will be presented with their answer versus the correct answer based on their responses.

Read More: Creating a Media Dichotomous Key Activity

Meta

The Meta activity type will display the included Activities as scrollable list.

Read More: Creating a Meta Activity

Path Finder

The Path Finder activity type is a visual activity that uses a series of multiple choice questions to chart a path from an origin to a destination. Each question’s options can have additional information that is used to provide context to the choice and help shape their answer. As the user progresses, they can view the correct answer from the previous questions to help build connections.

Read More: Creating a Path Finder Activity

Render Object

The Render Object activity type allows the user to interact with a digital three-dimensional object.

Read More: Creating a Render Object Activity

Rich Text with Narration

The Rich Text with Narration activity type displays rich text with an optional voiceover.

Read More: Creating a Rich Text with Narration Activity

Slideshow

The Slideshow activity type allows users to navigate through a slideshow, with optional “basement” slides that exist below the primary slide.

Read More: Creating a Slideshow Activity

Tile Match

The Tile Match activity type is designed to draw connections between two sets of objects, images, or ideas. Each set contains four cards that users can try to match, with configurable correct and incorrect responses.

Read More: Creating a Tile Match Activity

Timeline

The Timeline activity type creates an ordered timeline that users can navigate through, date by date.

Read More: Creating a Timeline Activity

Video Playback

The Video Playback activity type plays an MP4 video. It can be configured to disable the audio or the control bar.

Read More: Creating a Video Playback Activity

Visual Thinking

The Visual Thinking activity type is an inquiry-based learning activity can be used to highlight a collection of images and provide prompts for users to learn more about what they find most interesting.

Read More: Creating a Visual Thinking Activity