This website, "WikiEducator", provides free e-learning content that all teachers and educators can use and modify.
Launched by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and piloted by the Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC) course developers meeting in Mauritius in August 2006, this website is now being used for the development of educational resources.
According to COL, sites such as WikiEducator enable expansion of free learning content and can vastly improve access to education. Using WikiEducator, educators can collaborate on projects without consideration for travel, communicating across different time zones or dealing with differences in technology.
Use of WikiEducator is free and users don't need a high level of technical skills. Once users have registered on the site, they can use, re-distribute, and adapt the existing e-learning content on the website or make their own contributions.
WikiEducator is hosted by COL but shares the "wiki" philosophy of openness, inclusion and sharing of knowledge. WikiEducator uses "Mediawiki", the same open source software platform as does Wikipedia - the free online encyclopedia. These kinds of "social software" are changing how we record, access, share and use knowledge.
Further information:
- WikiEducator
- What is WikiEducator?
Previous issues of the e-newsletter:
- UNESCO ICT in Education e-newsletter