A rapid development environment for learning objects which can be exported to a variety to VLEs including Blackboard, Moodle, SharePoint, and WebCT. The easiest way to use this is through the Xerte OnLine Toolkits which can be installed on an institutional web server running Apache. The learning objects are produced using Adobe Flash and can therefore be played back on any platform which supports this as a web-browser add-in and that includes MACs, Windows and Linux. The designers of Xerte at the University of Nottingham have worked very closely with TechDis to ensure that the objects include a full range of accessibility features, allowing font sizes, colours and contrast to be adjustable by the user as well as providing audio support for those with impaired vision.
For those who just want to try out the XERTE environment, particularly if you are using Moodle, the RSC is providing a USB development implementation in which Xerte Toolkits is coupled with Moodle and, with version MAXOS_150, with Mahara. This enables designers to develop learning materials and to plan their Moodle-based coursework alongside this and to review it in context. Students may also use the software to construct e:portofilos using Mahara and, possibly, to use Xerte to develop their own notes or learning materials. No internet connection is required for this, as long as no external links are required for the coursework. The current version is MAXOS_150 and the complete download for this is available from the section below as well as a guide to its installation. Links to older, unsupported versions (MAXOS_100, MAXOS_090), are also available.
You can import objects you have created using the older version of MAXOS by exporting from the older version to a zip file, unzipping the file, editing the header of the .rlo file, zipping everything up together again and then importing the zipped file into MAXOS_100. See detailed instructions below.
You will need to click on the stop buttons for both MySQL and Apache before removing the memory stick or the database may become corrupted.