21st Century Learning and Teaching

The goal of the Netherlands Wikiwijs program, when it was launched by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science five years ago, was to mainstream the use of open education resources ("OERs") through an Internet-based portal. The Wikiwijs program enables all teachers in the Netherlands education system (primary, secondary and higher education) to search, find, create, develop and share all forms of multimedia learning materials.

The program, as its current project leader Robert Schuwer recently explained to me, has two components. The first enables teachers to find and access resources from educational and cultural institutions.

The second component is open education resources ("OERs") available under creative commons licenses where the sources of those resources are the teachers themselves. Hence, Dutch teachers are able to share their learning examples and best practices with their colleagues around the country. I asked Robert Schuwer, Associate Professor at the Open University Netherlands and a Project Leader of the Wikiwijs program, to discuss the successes and ongoing challenges of building Wikiwijs into a vibrant and enduring community based platform for all Dutch educators.

Professor Schuwer is also Chairman of the Special Interest Group OER for Higher Education and Chairman of the Nominating Committee for the Open Courseware Consortium.