[flashxmlengine] xerte evaluation
- From: "Tony Delahunty" <Tony.Delahunty@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <flashxmlengine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:58:48 +0100
Hi List: I'll post some comments here as there's no other conatct address on
the xerte home page. We got one of our team to try xerte out and his comments
here might be useful to others, including the bug reports (Of course, some of
these may already have been addressed, as I see there've been new xerte
releases in the last few days...)
----Evaluation report follows------------------------
2.1 Overview
Xerte is an xml editor and run time engine that is used to create and deploy
interactive learning objects. The user can choose from a range of media to
include in a learning object. This includes text, images, video (FLV format
only), and sound. Besides, the user can include built in components e.g.
drawing editor, interaction, decision etc. The user can also insert scripts.
The documentation says that the users of Xerte need to be familiar with
ActionScript or JavaScript. One of the project team members Xerte had this to
say on Xerte forum:
'I think it's unlikely that your average academic would download Xerte, make
sense of it and start producing interactive multimedia, unless they have some
experience of flash, or JavaScript. There are other tools more suited to
non-technical users, and that's not what we're trying to do.'
2.2 Advantages
Any learning object developed in Xerte will automatically include accessibility
options like colour and size change options and text to speech. Though the size
change option does not work properly.
2.3 Drawbacks
The tool is in its Beta version and hence not stable. Further, the information
in the help section is inadequate and a new user does not have an idea where to
start. Besides, there are some basic features which are not user friendly. For
instance, when the user wants to insert an image, the path of the image to be
inserted needs to be typed manually rather than from a 'file browse' dialog box
as is the standard. Similarly, colour code of text needs to be specified
manually rather than from a colour palette.
There are other functions in the programme which do not work properly. They are
as follows:
Only those properties of an icon can be deleted which are in the drop down box.
User defined properties cannot be deleted.
Preview command, when selected from the View menu, does not work.
Changing the position of text and images did not take effect some times.
Drag and drop activity requires the user to calculate coordinates of drop
target which is not user friendly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Regards, Tony
____________________________________________
Tony Delahunty
E-Learning Development Co-ordinator
College of North West London
020 8208 5460
Tony.Delahunty@xxxxxxxxxx <mailto:Tony.Delahunty@xxxxxxxxxx>
P - B505
Other related posts:
