For example, digital technologies can reduce barriers to education and allow more flexible and creative ways of learning, characterized by collaboration and bottom-up practices where the user is also a creator of learning content. Despite these considerable benefits that the digital revolution has to offer, researchers need to acknowledge, that open online education is also a hot advertising market (Moe 2015; Hylen 2006). Even if branded educational or edutainment content is not new, in recent years, the demands on children’s media literacy have increased enormously particularly with regard to open educational resources. Based on two similarly designed studies in Germany (quantitative and qualitative research design with 6 to 11 years old children) the intension of demonstrating the severe changes in these areas will be presented. The study from the 1990s shows that children’s advertising literacy (assessing television advertising and appraising the difference between advertising and television programs) increases with age. The results from the newest research about online advertising indicate that there are great uncertainties among children when recognizing and differentiating among online advertising measures. The empirical data prove that there is urgent need for major action when it comes to imparting advertising literacy.

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