there are millions of other people sharing the same product online ?

 online education mcomsumers are especially, er, attentive to the politics of publishing. It's a mature market, but all of us know how tough it is to get noticed when there are millions of other people sharing the same product online. However, it's also ripe for a little disruption, if only we can get to the source.

We have experience with lots of providers of online education. One of them, FutureLearn, has been developing a pedagogy that draws on the language of the Internet itself, where anonymous postings are open to the scrutiny of the public and to contributions from educators and researchers.

As a community-led educational project, FutureLearn is responding to an evolving environment where it makes sense to both encourage discussion and challenge the norms. You may have noticed in the last few days that our new online learning module, This is Education, focuses on democratic practices around education. At FutureLearn we try to engage people who would like to make their voices heard. We believe that education cannot be understood as it is taught. We must also recognize that education must not be restricted to a particular type of person or geographical area.

This is Education is part of a collaborative research project for the World Educational Research Association. The module presents basic empirical research, challenging established assumptions, taking into consideration multiple modes of reasoning, investigating the structural and cultural contexts in which education and democratic education exists.

This is Education focuses on democracy, which, in a modern globalized environment, is becoming increasingly unpredictable. We argue that democracy is not a binary – either it is and should be fundamentally democratic or it is not. Even in a world defined by democratic forms of governance, democratic institutions and public spheres are under threat.

Our project, This is Education, questions the possible relationship between democracy and education, and provides research and case studies on education and democracy in different parts of the world. We provide tools that educators, students, and citizens can use to challenge existing assumptions and create new democratic forms of education and learning in schools and universities.

Unfortunately, the market forces that are currently driving global online education are taking their toll on this rich democratic conversation. There are many stories of teaching environments where it is impossible to build real intellectual and social opportunities for diverse communities.

We must not be afraid to learn from the past.