Skip to content

Xerte

Summary

Xerte is a tool to create interactive online learning content.

What Xerte can do

Xerte (pronounced Zer-Tee) is an authoring tool for flexible, interactive and accessible online content. Xerte objects can be embedded or linked within VLE sites, and are very well suited to supporting flipped learning approaches.

There are two main ways to use Xerte objects:

  • As an interactive slide deck (Online Toolkit type)

    Slide or page-style objects that can be embedded within VLE sites.

    Great for integrated or flipped learning resources, such as preparation or review tasks.

    Example slide deck Xerte: Critical reading guide
    MCQ quiz within a slides-stlye Xerte object

  • As a simple web page (Bootstrap type)

    Responsive and flexible web pages that work well on any size device.

    Great for standalone resources or presenting large amounts of content, such as semester-long workbooks or guides.

    Example webpage Xerte: Achaeology Using ArcGis Pro workbook
    Webpage style Xerte workbook with section and navigation

Case study

Case study: Using Xerte to enhance asynchronous learning

Phil Martin and Dawn Genner Lowson outline how they use Xerte to create interactive materials with built-in feedback to support asynchronous learning.

Watch their presentation:

Using Xerte to enhance asynchronous learning (Panopto viewer) (2 mins 47 secs, UoY log-in required)

See the full case study for more details and the transcript. You can also browse our full set of case studies.

Interactivity & content types

Interactive tasks

Xerte supports a range of interactive content types, including:

  • multiple choice quizzes
  • gap fill text
  • matching options
  • drag and drop categorisation
  • hot spot/'pin the tail on the image'

Layout & navigation

Xerte allows very flexible content presentation:

  • full width or column layout
  • callouts to highlight key information
  • easily break up content: eg. accordion, drop down, tabbed sections
  • multiple menu and navigation options

Media

Xerte offers various ways to integrate media with text content, including:

  • image/audio slideshow
  • thumbnail image & text carousel
  • media synched with text

Maths content

Xerte is an excellent tool for accessibly presenting maths content online. It converts equations entered in LaTex to MathML, the standard for accessible online maths content.

Webpage style Xerte object with maths equations correctly and accessibly rendered

Full Xerte guide

Explore our full Xerte guide for more information on:

  • what Xerte can do
  • setting up your Xerte account
  • a range of example Xerte objects
  • the guide itself is an example of the webpage/Bootstrap style Xerte object.

You can view the full Xerte guide in its own tab or embedded below: