New eXe Support/Discussion Forums

Because Eduforge has disabled new account signups, it has been impossible for new users to participate in public interaction with the eXe community. I've set up new forums at SourceForge which you are welcome to use for support and discussion.

One Laptop Per Teacher

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has created a unique machine, the XO laptop, with features created especially for children of the emerging world.  It can be accompanied by a classroom server which may contain Moodle or a similar learning management system, and of course eXe is one way to author structured educational resources in the format it accepts.

While not the target audience, we were pleased that the standard eXe RPM can be installed and run on the XO Laptop!

Announcing eXe v1.03, developed entirely under CORE Education's support.

You asked for it at ULearn, and you asked for it in the forum.  Internal linking across your content is now possible for eXe web exports!

When editing any rich-text field, you will now find an anchor button just above the text-link and unlink buttons (the chain and broken chain, respectively), allowing you to insert an HTML anchor directly into your content.  Once processed (by clicking on the rich-text field's green checkmark), the anchor will be available as an internal linking destination: simply highlight some text where you would like the new link to exist, click on the text-link button, select the anchor from the text-link's Anchors drop-down list, and Insert the new internal link, easy as that! 

Although you will not be able to use the links while authoring your content within eXe itself, the internal links will become available upon web export to Single Page or Web Site: Self Contained Folder / Zip (internal links will be disabled in all other exports).  More tips and caveats may be found posted in the eXe forum at: http://eduforge.org/forum/forum.php?thread_id=2048&forum_id=298

Also new to eXe v1.03 is the ability to create content about HTML itself!  You won't see any fancy new buttons for this, but you will find that any example HTML code snippets that you type into the rich-text field will remain within your content:

For more information on this release, you may see the release notes at: http://eXeLearning.org/Release_Notes

The eXe team would like to thank CORE Education for their continued support, and you, the eXe community, for your continued participation.

eXe joins CORE and is named a Learning Impact finalist

CORE Education and eXe have joined forces! Christchurch-based CORE Education’s new collaboration with the eXe team enjoys an exciting beginning as the IMS Global Learning Consortium announces that eXe is a New Zealand Regional Learning Impact Award finalist.

In September of 2007, the eXe team completed its second round of funding from the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission, culminating with the long-awaited release of eXe v1.0 to thousands of educators around the world. Seeing a strong synergy between CORE Education’s values with those of eXe, CORE and the eXe team aligned to ensure the continued support and future growth of eXe itself, as well as further technological innovation for education in the broader realm of CORE Education.

eXe team members Dr. Sandy Britain and Jim Tittsler (lead eXe developer) recently attended the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC) quarterly meeting, the Summit on Innovation in Learning Technology conference, held in Queenstown. In addition to all of the other conference events (Dr. Britain presented “Beyond Static Content: The Common Cartridge”), they both had the excitement of demonstrating eXe to a panel of IMS GLC judges and being grilled in a Q&A session for all Learning Impact entrants.

On November 8th, IMS GLC named eXe as the 2nd Runner Up, one of this year's New Zealand Regional Learning Impact Awards finalists! Organizations from New Zealand, the Asia-Pacific Region, including India (but excluding Australia, which had its own regional competition) participated in the New Zealand Regional Learning Impact competition. As one of the top three Learning Impact projects in the New Zealand region this year, eXe is automatically entered into the global IMS GLC Learning Impact competition, to be held in Austin, Texas next May, 2008.

From the IMS GLC Learning Impact Award web page(http://www.imsglobal.org/learningimpact2008):

The Learning Impact Awards are designed to recognize the most impactful use of technology worldwide in support of learning. This unique program evaluates established, new, and research efforts in context at an implementing learning institution.

The Learning Impact program is facilitated by the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS) for the purpose of recognizing outstanding applications of technology that address the most significant challenges facing the global education and training industries.

The Learning Impact awards are very exclusive. They signify those products, services and implementations that have the greatest impact or potential impact on global learning industry challenges and the greatest potential return on investment.

The eXe team is very proud of this recognition, and is equally proud to be a part of the CORE Education family. This collaboration will bring about many new and exciting possibilities to continue advancing eLearning approaches that are future-focused and support effective pedagogical practice.

Tairawhiti Polytechnic graciously hosts the eXe development team in Gisborne, and Auckland team members have previously been hosted by the Auckland University of Technology and the University of Auckland.

eXe 1.0

Well eXe 1.0 has ticked over with a dignified click. We are happy to announce that 1.0 has been unleashed in a low key sort of way. The Auckland based team will celebrate over a glass or two of good Kiwi wine tonight with Wayne who serendipitously is arriving back in Auckland this evening. We'll have a virtual glass with our Gisborne based crew, in fact if Brent brings his N800 we might even video call you in on celebrations tonight.

We have many people to thank for their contributions, first and foremost our developers without whom none of this would have been possible, David, Wen Chen Hol, Brent, Jenny, Matthew, Jim and Remo. These guys were dedicated to the cause even when sometimes it wasn't that clear what the cause was. You guys rock! We'd also like to acknowledge Jamie and Jonathan for the graphic work they contributed, all those who contributed to the language translations namely Bárd András, Arek Felinczak, Andres Mellik, Abbas Mousavi, Fredrik Paulsson, Ralf Hilgenstock, Sigurður Fjalar Jónsson, John Kostaras, Tania Oxenham, Sipho Msimango, L. Vandijck, Carla Impagliazzo, Jose Cifuentes Riquelme. Thanks also to our global community of users, testers, and enthusiasts who have encouraged us to continue our work here. Thanks to our funders and sponsors, The Tertiary Education Commission, Tairawhiti Polytechnic, Auckland University of Technology and The University of Auckland.

Thanks to Sandy for your leadership over the past year, we've probably left you a little grayer and wearier but as an adventure junkie we hope the ride has been worthwhile. Finally, Wayne, who believed that there was a real need for this software and that we could do it.

There are probably many people who have contributed to this release that I haven't mentioned by name here and I do apologise but please know we are very grateful for your contributions.