The Course Activity Stream contains recent notifications in the course, including announcements, discussions, assignments, and conversations. This activity stream helps you see all recent activity in your course and easily ask questions and post to discussion forums. Unlike course cards on the Dashboard, the activity stream does not mimic visibility of Course Navigation links.
You can manage recent activity in a course the same way you can on the Dashboard. Activities are indicated by activity type and display an icon [1] for the activity. New activity in your account is indicated by a blue dot [2]. Discussions and Announcements indicate new activity items published in a course, and Conversations indicate a new message received from a user in a course. Recent Activity items remain for four weeks.
Note: To receive notifications for Discussions, you must actively post in the discussions at least once every two weeks. If you stop participating in a discussion after two weeks, Canvas will no longer display discussion notifications.