Introduction
What is Blocks by Aulasneo?
Blocks by Aulasneo is a hosted LTI Advantage tool platform. It lets you add rich, interactive learning activities — AI tutors, AI expert chats, graded multiple-choice and free-text assignments, and more — to any LMS that supports the LTI 1.3 standard, including Moodle, Open edX, Canvas, Blackboard, and D2L.
Instead of building and hosting your own LTI tool, you connect your LMS to Blocks once and then add as many activities as you need. Instructors select and author activities from inside their LMS course, and learners launch them seamlessly without leaving the course.
Why LTI 1.3?
LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) is the standard that lets an LMS securely embed external tools. LTI 1.3 / LTI Advantage adds:
Secure launches — cryptographically signed, OIDC-based handshakes between your LMS and Blocks, so learner identity and course context arrive safely.
Deep Linking — instructors pick and configure a Blocks activity from within the LMS, and the LMS stores a link back to it.
Assignment & Grade Services (AGS) and Names & Role Provisioning (NRPS) — the foundation for grade passback and roster awareness.
Blocks implements this foundation once, so every activity you add inherits secure launches and Deep Linking without extra configuration.
Key Concepts
The following concepts are central to working with Blocks.
- Workspace
Your team’s home in Blocks. Everything you create — platform connections, knowledge bases, billing, and team members — belongs to a workspace (also called a tenant). See The Workspace.
- Platform
A registered connection to one LMS (for example, your Moodle or Open edX site). A platform holds the trust configuration that lets that LMS launch Blocks activities. See Connecting Your LMS.
- Deployment
A specific instance of your tool within a platform. Some LMSs issue one deployment per site; others issue several. See Connecting Your LMS.
- Tool
A type of activity Blocks can present — for example AI Tutor, Multiple Choice, or Free Text. See Tools Overview.
- Tool Instance
A single configured activity created when an instructor uses Deep Linking. It stores the activity’s content and settings and is reused every time learners launch that LMS link. See Adding Activities (Deep Linking).
- Knowledge Base
A collection of source documents that AI tools can draw on to answer questions, generate content, or grade submissions. See Knowledge Bases.
- Credits
The unit Blocks uses to meter AI usage. Your subscription plan includes a monthly credit allowance, and you can buy additional one-time credit packs. See Billing & Credits.
The Roles Involved
A typical Blocks deployment involves several people:
Workspace owner / admin — registers LMS platforms, manages the team, configures knowledge bases, and handles billing from the Blocks workspace.
Instructor — works inside the LMS. Adds Blocks activities to courses via Deep Linking, authors their content, and reviews learner submissions.
Learner — launches and completes activities from inside their LMS course.
LMS administrator — performs the one-time trust setup that connects the LMS to Blocks.
How It Fits Together
A workspace admin registers an LMS platform in Blocks and completes the trust setup in the LMS (see Connecting Your LMS).
An instructor adds a Blocks activity to a course using Deep Linking, choosing the tool type and authoring its content (see Adding Activities (Deep Linking)).
Learners launch the activity from the course and interact with it; graded tools record results and AI usage is metered against your credits.
The instructor reviews submissions and grades, and the admin monitors usage and billing from the workspace.