MOOCs and other online educational resources – Remodelling education and training?

Traditionally, education and training have been real-world phenomena, possibly challenged but mostly complemented by physical books and other texts. In our contemporary, increasingly digital world, ICT provides complements, but also increasingly virtual alternatives and challenges to same-time, same-place ”real world” education. This paper explores how Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other online educational resources (OERs) both bridge and disrupt institutional and individual teaching and learning discourse and cultural practice, partly because the real world is to a large extent digital.Previous research has tended to focus on OERs provided by institutional actors and on education as an area where learners aim for degrees. In this paper, the analysis is extended to include OERs provided by individuals and learners who aim to learn regardless of official degrees or certificates.