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Portable apps
AccessApps
Our aim is to raise awareness and offer guidance towards embedding best practice. We are able to offer advice during visits, forum meetings and events. It is also possible for supported learning providers to use our loan equipment for assistive technology for evaluation purposes. Please contact us at support@rsc-eastern.ac.uk
The EduApps Family includes the following:
AccessApps, provides a range of solutions to support writing, reading and planning, as well as sensory, cognitive and physical difficulties. TeachApps, is a collection of software specifically designed for teachers or lecturers. LearnApps, as its name implies, is specifically designed for learners. All learners or students can benefit from LearnApps. MyStudyBar, is our most popular program, providing a suite of apps to support literacy. MyVisBar, a high contrast floating toolbar, designed to support learners with visual difficulties. MyAccess, is a portal to all your favourite and accessible applications providing inclusive e-learning options for all. Accessible Formatting WordBar, create accessible Word documents with ease using the innovative WordBar.
Apps4Skills
RSC Eastern has selected a variety of the most useful open source software tools for the learning and skills sector. Users can benefit from communication, multimedia, productivity, content creation and accessibility tools, as well as numeracy and literacy games.
Access and download Xerte and Moodle on a stick, Skype and GroupMe, as well as DSpeech and Elltube. Upload the resources onto a USB stick and share with fellow tutors and learners. For further information read the brochure here.
Explore the RSC Eastern Apps4Skills resource today. Download the resource here.
MAXOS
Xerte
A rapid development environment for learning objects which can be exported to a variety to VLEs including Blackboard, Moodle, SharePoint, and WebCT. The easiest way to use this is through the Xerte OnLine Toolkits which can be installed on an institutional web server running Apache. The learning objects are produced using Adobe Flash and can therefore be played back on any platform which supports this as a web-browser add-in and that includes MACs, Windows and Linux. The designers of Xerte at the University of Nottingham have worked very closely with TechDis to ensure that the objects include a full range of accessibility features, allowing font sizes, colours and contrast to be adjustable by the user as well as providing audio support for those with impaired vision.
MAXOS Development
For those who just want to try out the XERTE environment, particularly if you are using Moodle, the RSC is providing a USB development implementation in which Xerte Toolkits is coupled with Moodle and, with version MAXOS_150 and above, with Mahara. This enables designers to develop learning materials and to plan their Moodle-based coursework alongside this and to review it in context. Students may also use the software to construct e-portfolios using Mahara and, possibly, to use Xerte to develop their own notes or learning materials. No internet connection is required for this, as long as no external links are required for the coursework. The current version is MAXOS_152 and the complete download for this is available from the section below as well as a guide to its installation.
Importing:
You can import objects you have created using a previous version of MAXOS by exporting from the older version to a zip file, then importing the zipped file into MAXOS_152. See detailed instructions below.
Installation:
- Download the zip file and unpack it to a folder on the Desktop e.g. 'MAXOS'
- Copy the contents of the folder to a new USB stick with at least 2 GigaBytes available. Do not copy the folder, only the contents and make sure they are in the root directory of the USB stick
- You can now run the application either by clicking on the file called 'startup.bat' or by removing the stick and re-inserting it, if you have 'autorun' enabled.
- After starting the application you will have an XAMPP icon on your taskbar and the application will be running.
You will need to click on the stop buttons for both MySQL and Apache before removing the memory stick or the database may become corrupted.
If your are running SKYPE you will need to close this down before starting MAXOS and then re-start it after you have started MAXOS - this is because SKYPE operates a web server on the default port for the Apache Web Server, however if that port is in use, Skype will try another.
Importing an older version:
- Export each object from the older version as a scorm.zip file using the 'Properties/Export' utility and store it in a safe folder
- Startup the newer version and click on Workspace and then on Properties
- Use the browse button to locate the zip file(s) you have just created, give each learning object a name and then click on the upload button to upload it. You should eventually get a confirmatory window and the new object should appear in your 'Workspace' folder.
