[Xerte] Re: Xerte in primary schools - turning into philosophical discourse.

Mon Nov 7 14:20:41 GMT 2011

A fair point and well made! You will have noted of course my final point was "it could be risky putting in a functionality that could be used inappropriately in the distance learning context".

To a large extent it's a maturity issue. The more 'accessibility mature' (ie aware and intelligently active) an organisation is the more there is to be gained by mixing and matching partially accessible solutions to meet particular needs. However, the concept of partial accessibility is dangerous in an organisation that lacks accessibility maturity because it then becomes an excuse for doing little or nothing and you can get cringe-worthy attitudes like "these resources are specifically designed for 'normal' people" - which just means "I don't know any good practices and couldn't be bothered finding out".

There's some interesting discussion to be had around the area. My observations would suggest there are four main categories of developer in relation to accessibility:

*         The denialist - doesn't consider it and wouldn't know what it involved or why it was important.

*         The minimalist - does what is required to cover their back in terms of legislation and contracts.

*         The optimist - actively tries to engage and support learning with the use of different resources with different levels of accessibility in order to meet as wide a range of needs as possible by different methods.

*         The purist - only creates resources that are wholly standards compliant and fully accessible to all users irrespective of disability.
The following comments are worth noting.
Purists maximise the number of people who can use their resources but depending on the nature of the topic and the learner, they can compromise on the number of people who enjoy using them. They might also create resources at a slower rate.
Denialists, minimalists and optimists are all well served by Xerte.
Purists don't use it because it's based on Flash and everyone knows Flash is not only proprietary but also completely "inaccessible" :)

A

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Dave Burnett
Sent: 07 November 2011 12:46
To: Xerte list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Xerte in primary schools

Alistair, is this not the slippery slope you have cautioned us of on other occasions?
What of the danger of a non-accessible piece escaping into the wild, like a GMO?
;-)

________________________________
From: Alistair.McNaught at HEAcademy.ac.uk
To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2011 10:19:20 +0000
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Xerte in primary schools
It's only a non-no when you have no idea who your audience is or what their specific needs might be - for example when creating an online course that could be marketed to people with different nationalities, disabilities or connectivities.

In primary and secondary education,  Xerte is likely to be used in a class based context - for example with an interactive whiteboard.  In this case, teachers will often use timers to produce a creative tension or create friendly competitiveness between groups or even just help distractable pupils stay on track. For some learners that can be a trick that helps include them.

Like many aspects of accessibility it's not the technique that is accessible or inaccessible but the context in which it is applied. I can, however, see that from a developer point of view it could be risky putting in a functionality that could be used inappropriately in the distance learning context.

A

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 07 November 2011 09:58
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Xerte in primary schools

>Would be nice if Xerte had an "add page timer" option that could give you a countdown for doing a task under time pressure. I might copy the technical list into this email in case anyone there is working on a similar idea.

I thought that was an accessibility no-no?

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Alistair McNaught
Sent: 05 November 2011 09:43
To: A list to facilitate and support teachers using Xerte Online Toolkits
Cc: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Xerte in primary schools

Thanks John and Bob for the ideas - the John's Moodle book has given lots of ideas already just flicking through the contents.

I can see some "Xerte Spot the Difference" activities with the Morph Image template and some external links to jigsaws using the NewPage navigator template.
Talking of templates I could probably do a nice "climate cross section" using the tabbed navigator to work down the latitudes. I'll try the new Hangman template and I have a great audio clip from my friend (who set up the charity) describing his encounter with an angry hippo as a child when he was head butted into the river. That will go really well with the audio slideshow template. I could do another style of spot the difference with the annotated diagram template. If I've got time I'll do a Camstudio screencapture describing the Savanna and then turn it into a synched video followed by a multichoice quiz.

Would be nice if Xerte had an "add page timer" option that could give you a countdown for doing a task under time pressure. I might copy the technical list into this email in case anyone there is working on a similar idea.

Being primary age kids I'll probably not risk the Flickr and YouTube templates since the results involve a degree of unpredictability!

That's my weekend sorted..

Thanks for the ideas - I just needed something to get the creative juices flowing. I'll let people see the finished products when I'm done .

A

From: A list to facilitate and support teachers using Xerte Online Toolkits [mailto:XERTEFORTEACHERS at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Bob Read
Sent: 05 November 2011 08:52
To: XERTEFORTEACHERS at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject:

Hi Alistair
Like John I'd also recommend having a look at some on line jigsaw websites such as www.jigsawplanet.com<http://www.jigsawplanet.com> . The puzzles are made within seconds and I'm sure you could use some photos or images of scenes relevant to overseas development as the basis of some activities.
Sounds like really useful project - good luck!
regards
Bob

Bob Read
Training and Development Adviser
ACER
Suite 1 Lancaster House, Meadow Lane
St Ives, Cambs PE27 4LG
tel 01480 468198
Mobile: 07795 260483

http://www.acer.ac.uk/
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From: A list to facilitate and support teachers using Xerte Online Toolkits [mailto:XERTEFORTEACHERS at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of John Doubleday
Sent: 04 November 2011 19:59
To: XERTEFORTEACHERS at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject:

Hi Alistair,
Games are the thing...online snakes and ladders....jigsaw, simple word search

 This is a Moodle2 book for teachers of 4-9 year old  You may get some ideas.
http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=55&rid=5125
cheers
johnD

Digital Teacher-Super Tech<http://www.digitalteacher.com.au/>
On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 4:08 AM, Alistair McNaught <Alistair.McNaught at heacademy.ac.uk<mailto:Alistair.McNaught at heacademy.ac.uk>> wrote:
I'm doing some volunteering for a small charity creating resources for primary school children to help them understand development in general and the activities of the charity in particular. We're using Xerte to create resources for use in the primary classroom. Whilst I have lots of experience with Xerte and lots of experience in teaching development to post 16 audiences I have little experience of primary classrooms so if anyone has any hints and tips about the kind of approaches to take, the kinds of resources I might be integrating with etc I'd be very grateful.

Alistair

Alistair McNaught
Senior Advisor
JISC TechDis
C/O The Higher Education Academy Building
Innovation Way
York Science Park
YORK
YO10 5BR

07870567659
Skype: alistair_techdis
http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk<http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/?utm_source=emailsig&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sitelaunchmail>

Interested in pragmatic inclusion- focused staff development?
See JISC TechDis ITQ for accessible IT practice<http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/techdis/pages/detail/floating_pages/ITQ_Accessible_IT_Practice> information and taster resource<http://itq.jisctechdis.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=5>.

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