QR code or virtual room: when to use each mode

Do you always need to create a room? Not necessarily

To put an activity in front of your learners, EduTools offers two paths with different purposes:

• Direct access: you share a QR code or link pointing to a specific activity (a quiz, a flashcard deck, a kanban board…). The participant scans and lands right on it, without navigating a space.
• The virtual room: you open a full facilitated space where several activities, the chat and tracking coexist, which you steer in real time.

These aren't two competing versions of the same product, but two answers to two different needs: distributing an activity on one side, facilitating a session on the other. Many trainers only know the room and, without realising it, miss out on the fastest mode for half of their use cases.

Direct access: a QR (or link) to a specific activity

From the list of your components (flashcards, kanban, sticky notes, mind map, quiz…), a "QR code & link" button instantly generates:

• a direct link to copy into an email, an LMS or a messaging app;
• a QR code to project, print or display — that the participant scans with their phone.

The participant needs no account and no app: they scan, they're on the activity. A detail that matters for your GDPR duties: the QR is generated locally, in the browser, with no request to any external service — no third-party tracker.

Direct access works for most components: quiz, flashcards, kanban board, sticky-note wall, mind map, whiteboard and interactive video. Better still, some of them (kanban, sticky notes, mind map, flashcards) are persistent boards or decks that you reuse and update from one session to the next.

The virtual room: the full facilitated space

The room remains the cockpit of a live session. It brings what direct access doesn't:

• Real-time facilitation: you launch, pause and chain activities for the whole group at once.
• Individual tracking: attendance, per-learner results, answer history — valuable to prove participation or to remediate.
• Components that live in the moment: collective word cloud, wheel of fortune, flash poll, Kahoot-style live quiz, synchronised slides, chat. Those only make sense during facilitation.

In short: direct access is for distributing an activity, the room is for facilitating a session. The two complement each other — you can perfectly prepare a kanban in direct access, then reuse it in a room on workshop day.

Direct access or room: the comparison

4 situations, 4 right choices

The best mode depends on what you want to do, not on the tool:

• Review between two sessions → a flashcard deck via direct link: everyone revises at their own pace, no appointment needed.
• Run a project over time → a shared, persistent kanban board the team updates whenever they want — no room to keep open.
• Spark ideas in person → a sticky-note wall: display the QR on the wall or projector, everyone scans and contributes from their phone.
• Give a self-assessment quiz as homework → the direct link to the quiz: everyone takes it when they want, you get individual results.

And as soon as it's about facilitating a live session — recapturing attention, creating group dynamics, tracking attendance — the virtual room makes full sense again.

The simple rule to choose

Just one question to ask yourself:

Are you facilitating live? → virtual room.
Are you distributing an activity to be done independently? → direct access via QR or link.

Generating direct access couldn't be simpler: from the component's list, open the ⋮ menu, click "QR code & link", then copy the link, display the QR or download it as an image to print. In a few seconds, your activity is ready to be scanned.