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<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>The interesting debate is around the tension between powerful
flexible tools that can do anything you need to, and tools that anyone can use,
with very little learning curve. I don’t think there is the ‘one’ tool.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><b><span lang=EN-US
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Alistair
McNaught<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, February 02, 2010 10:54 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Xerte discussion list<br>
<b>Subject:</b> RE: [Xerte] Questions about Templates Error, WYSIWYG, Open
Source license,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The other point about WYSIWYG
which we’ve discussed in the past is that it might compromise some of the
accessibility benefits – for example if the tutor chose yellow text in the
WYSIWYG but the learner selected a yellow background all the text would be
invisible. Error trapping that would be somewhat difficult.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Alistair<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><b><span lang=EN-US
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Julian Tenney<br>
<b>Sent:</b> 02 February 2010 10:06<br>
<b>To:</b> Xerte discussion list<br>
<b>Subject:</b> RE: [Xerte] Questions about Templates Error, WYSIWYG, Open
Source license,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>HI,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Thanks for the questions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Which templates are causing
you problems when you try and install them? What happens exactly?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The WYSIWYG editor would be
great, but is quite an undertaking: and there is some debate over whether it
would actually simplify things – also some types of icon don’t have visual
elements on the screen, so how to select and adjust properties of those? There
is some WYSIWYG via shift-F5.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The project is completely
open source –do whatever you like with it. If you or others want to develop a
new editor for the .rlo format, that would be great, and something I’d be keen
to support - but I cannot do it alone. The current work on Xerte 3.0 might
present an opportunity to add the WYSIWYG stuff, as the codebase for that is
much more object oriented and modular, and easier to work with -
remember, Xerte 2.x began life in 2004 as a Flash 6 swf, in the days before any
proper object-oriented support in Flash. Xerte 3.0 is built on the Flex
framework, and is all ActionScript 3.0, so it’s right up to date, and there is
loads of potential. I’m very keen to encourage a developer community around it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Who do you mean by instructors?
Academics at your institution? I don’t think that even a WYSIWYG editor will
get them doing what is essentially programming, and they will need some skills
with scripting. Here, our academics use Xerte Online Toolkits to create content
from templates, and they manage quite well – you might want to explore that
more. I don’t think there is a holy grail, and I have searched hard for it too
- I think the answer is in a suite of tools that compliment each other,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>J<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'><b><span lang=EN-US
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Christopher
King<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, February 01, 2010 10:34 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> xerte@lists.nottingham.ac.uk<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Xerte] Questions about Templates Error, WYSIWYG, Open Source
license,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>Hello,<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>I've came across Xerte fairly
recently and have only just begun to experiment with
its capabilities for authoring learning objects. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>Coming from a background in
instructional design, I've worked with quite a variety of commercial e-learning
authoring tools over the years, including Flash, Lectora, Softchalk,
Articulate and many others. However, I've always felt these commercial
offerings had shortcomings that ultimately made them very unlikely
to be really see much use by the majority of instructors in
academia. Typically, these elearning authoring tools either have too
steep a learning curve for teachers who have very little time to spare, or
that they are far too expensive to be feasible for a departmental budget,
or both. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>So for many years, I've made it a
point to search for this "holy grail" of e-learning
tools. As I searched, I added to my wish list that the idea tool
would be XML based, able to export to its content in swf format,
and create content that was 508 accessible. Thus, I was extremely
excited to discover Xerte and to learn that this platform is free and open
source, based in XML and creates highly accessible content. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>However, as I've begun to
delve into making my first learning objects with the Xerte standalone tool, I'm
running into some early challenges getting comfortable with the
authoring workflow and with getting things to work right.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>For example, I've tried to take
advantage of some of the pre-built templates, but when I try to install a
template, I get an "Invalid File Format" error prompt. I've
tried this in two different versions of Xerte, including the latest, but no
luck. I would really like to try these out so wondering if anyone might
have a suggestion.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>I'm also concerned that not
having a WYSIWYG authoring environment will likely be a show-stopper for
many instructors. Is there any plan to have such an interface enhancement
added to future versions?<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>Also, I'm curious to know to what
extent this tool is Open source. Obviously, it is free, but is the source
code also available for other developers to modify to create their own
customized versions? If modification of the code is permissable, my
institution has some fairly robust programming talent which might be utilized
to enhance aspects of the authoring infrastructure, such as adding a WYSIWIG
editing component.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>I hope these questions aren't out
of place in this forum, as I would greatly any feedback offered.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>Much thanks.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>Chris King<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>University of South Florida
Polytechnic<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'>Lakeland, FL USA<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:72.0pt'><br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
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