The open mindset.

Webslides is not just a tool. It is a philosophy, a vision on education that is promoted and concretized through our platform.

Our society is characterized by globalization, digitalization and constant change. This is contrasted by educators that often struggle to provide students with the skills to shape tomorrow’s society.

A paradigm shift is needed where 21st century skills such as digital literacy, sustainability, entrepreneurship, global citizenship and research must be included in a new curriculum design that focuses on self-guidance.

We believe this can be achieved by an open approach to learning. In this sense, open is the holy grail of our project and covers a variety of ideas:

Co-creation

Firstly, it means opening up learning material to be co-created and improved by not only colleagues but also students and other stakeholders.

With co-creation, students naturally bring their individual learning needs and qualities to the table, allowing for increased course diversification and student engagement leading to better and deeper learning outcomes.

By contrast, current course material typically starts from the educator, and fails to engage the rich capabilities of its students, many of which have prior work and learning experiences that could add value to the learning process.

Unlocking their potential through co-created course content – also in a blended and distance learning context – greatly contributes to the quality and richness of the course, and to the development of critical thinkers.

Opening up material to other stakeholders also results in a more self-reflective, critical approach to creating learning material, while also inviting critical friends to provide feedback and vice versa. This, in turn, promotes the connecting of different subject narratives into a more coherent, multi-perspective curriculum.

Accessibility and lowering the bar of entry

Webslides aims to facilitate the learning process and make it accessible to everyone. This includes people for whom the bar of entry might currently be rather high, such as those who suffer from learning disorders or physical disabilities.

A global platform for learning

Secondly, webslides provide the option to go beyond co-creation in closed environments such as faculty departments, teacher corps or student groups. We believe that opening up learning material for a global audience in one unified and accessible platform can add tremendous value to learners everywhere.

Free and built with free material

Just as its underlying web technology, the webslide platform is free to use and accessible everywhere. Even our source code is available to any and all who wish to improve upon it.

Content before layout

To promote and facilitate this co-creation philosophy, we strongly believe that the value of learning material should not be found in nifty transitions or extensive use of exotic styles but rather in simple yet structured material that makes well-thought-out use of innovative tools for interaction and flipped classroom initiatives.