An online peer-to-peer learning platform is gearing up to take the "outdated" education sector to the 21st century making it a one-stop shop for tutors and students.
Blockchain-based NTOK says its ecosystem helps raise funds for education and removes geographical obstacles between teachers and students - and will provide a high-quality learning environment, provided with textbooks and courses from prominent publishers.
The concept is already being tested, with an alpha version of the platform being used as an online English school. NTOK executives say they are getting "fast feedback" from users so that extra features can be developed.
Although the company is planning to specialize in foreign languages, other offers will include preschool education, supplementary learning for primary and secondary school students and coding courses and Blockchain.
A growing market with growing pains
According to a report by Research and Markets, the global private education market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 6.7% between 2016 and 2020.
In theory, this means greater choice for students and increased demand for teachers - but NTOK argues that inadequate infrastructure and a continued emphasis on offline learning is holding back its potential.
The company claims that some students spend hours a day traveling to private lessons amid school commitments. Meanwhile, the lack of a reliable online system means that there is an imbalance in supply and demand, with skilled tutors in rural areas unable to offer their services to families in larger cities.
Until now, accessibility has also affected access to mentoring. Hourly rates are often inflated by intermediaries who connect students with teachers, providing extra support to the boundaries of people from low-income families, and making it more difficult for teachers to pay their bills.
NTOK believes that its ecosystem will take commercial study centers out of the box and estimates that this could reduce tuition costs by 75%, with its white paper adding: "At NTOK, each student can find a teacher and each teacher can find a student ".
Although hourly rates are pulled down through the ecosystem, NTOK says that teachers will have multiple streams of revenue boosted. The platform will allow specialists to sell pre-recorded classes and expect educational publishers to pay teachers to experiment with new teaching resources.
Tokens, testimonials and technology
The New Tokens of Knowledge (NTOK) in Ethereum Blockchain will be used for payment on the platform and teachers with larger balances will be rewarded with higher search rankings.
NTOK states that the feedback systems of many direct and indirect competitors are often moderate, with negative reviews removed. Like other Blockchain startups, the company hopes the system will prevent feedback manipulation - allowing students to make informed decisions. To protect teachers, your overall rating will be based on an average in the last 30 days, preventing a bad score from knocking your reputation disproportionately.
The development of study areas has been a major focus for the company, with users offering interactive whiteboards, file sharing and connections for audio and video calls that offer "better quality than Skype" - the software commonly used for classes at the moment.
The NTOK platform will champion the idea of "tokenize talents," where students can buy hours of teachers in bulk at a fixed price - preventing services from becoming more expensive in the future. The company says that this also allows teachers to "pre-fund their personal development." She believes that this concept will help to develop the current business and existing operations in a "three-tiered Blockchain infrastructure for continuing education and worldwide."
The ticking on NTOK
Future developments may include the sale of learning aids, including tablets and headphones for simultaneous interpretation.
This effort to overcome language barriers fits in well with NTOK's growth plan. China, South Korea and Japan are priority markets for its first three years of operation. Spanish-speaking countries will follow them, as will the United States and the United Kingdom.
Backed by a team of experienced tutors, software engineers and entrepreneurs, NCOK's ICO ends on April 15. Resources are limited to $ 15 million and 70% of tokens are being made available to the public.
The company says cryptos and fiduciary funding have already been secured to develop the beta version of NTOK, and those who have a substantial amount of tokens will have the opportunity to vote on new features for the ecosystem in the future.
Source: Cointelegraph
Tags: #cryptocurrency #blockchain #bitcoin #elearning #ntok #ico