Hi Steve
Here's my personal response to your questions.
User Experience:
Once you have grasped a few basic principles, I think Xerte is very intuitive to author in. You can be creating simple learning materials with some input in the form of text, audio or video, or any combination of these, and a few interactive tasks including drag and drop or text-entry boxes, with just 2 hours of training/self-study. Some page types are complex to author in, but you may never feel the need to use these page types. I would say that one of the greatest strengths of the Xerte tools is that while there is great scope for tweaking page and task design, you can get started quickly and then gradually develop the range of page types you author in. Challenges: the WYSIWYG editor is not 100% WYSIWYG, so sometimes you need to edit > preview > edit > preview .... to get a page looking the way you want it to - this is not a big deal, and if you have experience in webpage design, this should not cause problems.
(A few ideas for) Best Practice:
- Start with XOT; don't look at Bootstrap until you are convinced that XOT is what to you want to use for interactivity, because in my view using Bootstrap without XOT makes little sense
- Use XOT to create interactive building blocks; use Bootstrap to assemble these into a module or course.
- Plan out what you want to achieve with a Learning Object (LO) before you start authoring it e.g. learning outcomes, prior knowledge needed, a test>teach>test approach, or a straight teach>test approach, availability of resources (texts, audio, video, images) You will probably need to do this explicitly and systematically on a formal project, particularly if you are working collaboratively, but if you are working alone you will need to consider these aspects of instructional design even if you don't write them down.
- If you are using XOT for independent learning, be prepared to spend a lot of time planning narrative feedback on interactive tasks; a task will only be as good as the feedback you provide.
- If possible, have colleagues peer-review or trial your LOs before you use them with students
- Even if students are using your LOs independently, demonstrate how to use them in a live session, have the students use them with you available for support an advice. Work on developing effective independent learning strategies and don't assume that students you may regard as digital natives will automatically use the LOs in the way you expect them to.
- Look at LOs created by other Xerte authors in your field - you'll learn a lot about different perspectives on learning, and get ideas you can try out for yourself
- Don't put too much text on one page. Students should not have to do too much scrolling; you may be able to break texts or tasks into smaller chunks, and deal with them over several pages.
- Be very explicit and consistent in your instructions for tasks, and consistent in your use of fonts, italics, underlining, bold - develop a style guide, particularly if you are authoring in a team.
- Follow guidance from your institution and/or the Xerte community on accessibility
xot.xerte.org.uk/play.php?template_id=153#page1
- Use the Xerte wiki -
xerte.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=start - to help you learn more about XOT ( and to a lesser extent about Bootstrap).
Collaborative Projects: XOT is brilliant for collaboration among authors. The collaborative settings are accessed through Project Properties; look at the sections on Shared settings, Peer reviewing, Giving a project and Group folders on this wiki page -
xerte.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=project_properties . There is also value in learners working collaboratively on the same LO; this is easy to do in a live lesson, less so asynchronously. There is no inbuilt social learning in XOT, but you can, for example, embed a Padlet page to facilitate asynchronous communication.
Integration: I have uploaded XOT LOs into Blackboard courses, and have had scores by students feed into Grade Centre, but this is an aspect of Xerte that other members of the Xerte Community are better placed to advise on.
This is my website focussing on the use of Xerte in language learning -
languagehub.uk/xerte/play.php?template_id=326
Here's an XOT demonstrating page types I frequently use -
languagehub.uk/xerte/play.php?template_id=254
Best wishes
Jonathan Smith
