New Excellence Gateway

Back in October I noted how the Excellence Gateway was undergoing significant development which would further improve access to its e-learning content and services. This work has now been completed and on February 1 2012 you’ll see the Excellence Gateway transform.

As a result of conversations with a whole range of people working across the FE and skills sector, the new Excellence Gateway will be faster, simpler, more effective with redesigned navigation and improved search technology. These innovations, together with a sleeker look and feel, have enabled the team at LSIS to develop a site that is truly fit for the future.

If you are already registered, your membership to the new Excellence Gateway will be automatically transferred, although you may wish to take note of any bookmarks you have made. Membership of the new Excellence Gateway will mean that you can join in the conversations on the new forums and set up your own workrooms to support projects and discussions that you’re involved with. The forums and workrooms will continue on the existing Excellence Gateway for a while before you are asked to transfer your conversations.

The team at LSIS are really excited by the new Excellence Gateway and they are very much looking forward to hearing what you think too.

The new Excellence Gateway – discover what’s in it for you.

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Creating Learning Resources with Xerte Online Toolkits

Xerte is an international award winning, free, teaching and learning tool and it's Online Toolkits (which are also free) offer a convenient set of tools for easily creating e-learning content. The toolkits are also browser-based so you don't need to know any html or other coding language in order to quickly create learning objects that can contain a mixture of text, images, audio, video, quizzes and other interactive learning content.

As part of our support for the development of e-learning content we periodically offer training in Xerte as it has proved a popular tool for getting to grips with writing e-learning materials with little fuss. As a highly accessible and free tool, I also think it’s worth knowing about, even if it’s something that you don’t currently use yourself. So, if you haven’t seen Xerte before you can:

• ….browse this learning object that was created by Ron Mitchell of Mitchellmedia as a way of demonstrating some of the features of the tool and, furthermore, explaining just why he believes “…Xerte is the best thing since Lobster!...” Hmm, curious!

• …or directly proceed to this embedded youtube video in which some of those involved in its development, talk about its potential and current use.

Next steps:

If you’re familiar with Xerte and would like to know more about how it can support your organisation please note that we will be offering training in this popular tool at Wolverhampton Science Park, on 26th January 2012 at a cost of £75.00. This one day beginner’s workshop will allow attendees to become familiar with the Xerte Online Toolkit and is available to anybody who wishes to create e-Learning Objects. To book your place, visit: RSC-WM Events

We hope you can join us!



To read more of Wobble click here.