Xerte interactive learning materials
Overview
Xerte is a tool for creating accessible, multi-media, interactive resources (sometimes called ‘learning objects’) for teaching and learning. These resources are built and accessed using a web browser. A resource may act as a mini-website, structured to take your learners through text and video content, with interactive elements to embed learning – or it may be an automatically marked assessment with a wide range of question types. Xerte is very flexible.
Learning objects are made by populating template pages with content and interactions via a web form. See an example of all the different page types available in Xerte.
Xerte is great for creating small blocks of learning. It could be used to help learners with threshold concepts in your course, to teach something students always find difficult, or to help them with something you find yourself teaching over and over again.
There is no need to install any additional software on your computer. The learning objects can be used on all devices, including smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.
Good practice
Xerte is great for active learning. It can be used simply to deliver content in a more interesting layout than a Word or PDF document, but its real power lies in the ability to author and deliver interactive tasks and activities.
Plan out your resource before you start working in Xerte. Have your text, images and videos ready, and some idea of what the activities will be. Then you can start considering the structure and page types.
Xerte is designed to be digitally accessible. Make the most of this by ensuring your content is accessible too. For example, consider contrast when using backgrounds, and don’t fix the text size or use inaccessible fonts. See An introduction to digital accessibility (created in Xerte) for more information.
Getting started
You can log in to Xerte using your standard UWE username and password at https://xerte.uwe.ac.uk. A short introduction video is available from the login page, or you can view the intro video here.
Make sure to look at the UWE Xerte User Guide for lots of useful information about getting started with Xerte.
Support
UWE Xerte User Guide: The essential starting point for any UWE staff who want to make use of Xerte. Find out about starting to create learning objects, see examples from UWE colleagues, learn how to publish learning objects in Blackboard, how to track students’ scores, how to use Panopto videos in learning objects and much more.
Xerte Page Types: Here you can see all the page types available in Xerte – a good place to start choosing which type of pages to include in your own project.
The Xerte Community: Visit this site for inspiration, examples and support. It includes a showcase of learning objects and you can find and ask for support via the forums.
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