Thursday 14 January 2010

Xerte - Online interactive learning object generator

Over the coming weeks I will be writing some simple tips on creating resources and ideas for embedding the use of technology.


As we move nearer towards offering a percentage of all courses online we need to find a way to produce interactive learning content that is effective and simple to use. Many of these are expensive to buy licences for but Xerte, developed by the University of Nottingham, is free for all teachers and students to use. The software allows you to create a wide variety of Interactive pages by using ready made templates. This demonstration shows examples of most of the types of pages that can be created.

As well as creating full online learning objects you can also use it just to create simple one off pages that can be emailed or linked to your Schemes of Work. Xerte allows to embed video, podcasts, twitter, flickr, Google maps and much, more which makes it so versatile to use.

Don't just think of it as a tool for teachers though as it is a powerful software to introduce to your students. You could allow them to produce assignments or presentations as coursework or even allow them to create resources for each other.

Having used a few content generators Xerte is not the most user friendly interface around, and some of the support resources I have found are a little difficult to decipher.... However saying that it is one of those pieces of software that is really simple to navigate once you have been shown and produces some really effective resources in little time. It is defnitely worth investing your time in learning about it.

If you are interested in trying this software out and would like the ILT trainers to support you, please make a comment below and Tony Welch or I will contact you to arrange a suitable time to meet. If you have this article useful, interesting or just pointless please click on one of the reactions below. This will help me gauge the articles I write in future.

Wendy Peskett - ILT trainer

2 comments:

Marie said...

I have downloaded the software at home and I must admit that although it looks really good, it's definately not user friendly. I would really like to get some support to help me using this sofware.

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