Developing a Proof of Concept for Education on Steemit

in education •  7 years ago 

Introducing A Major New Sndbox Initiative


Yesterday, we witnessed the launch of a major initiative by @kenfinkel and his new community account @phillyhistory.

@phillyhistory’s first act will consist of an educational laboratory. The mission of the account will be to explore the potential of education on the Steem blockchain under the umbrella of a graduate-level history course at Temple University (Philadelphia, US).

Each graduate student in the course will create their own Steem account with the help of @sndbox. They will use their blog as a resource to document, archive, research and ask for feedback. This community account - @phillyhistory - will be used to share course resources with the broader Steemit public while simultaneously curating student posts and evaluate them through upvotes. With the funds raised, the class will collectively be able to fund resources for the Philadelphia History Museum and surrounding community. You can read the full mission here.

the walk.jpg

A view of Temple University Campus in Philadelphia. Source, here.

Cultivating a Blockchain "Campus"


This marks a major step in the ongoing impact we’re seeking out of the @sndbox community. To converge Steemit with an institution is an exciting new venture that we hope and will catalyze a new branch of educational programming built into the Steem blockchain. Temple University will be our very first case-study and opportunity to explore how students can leverage blockchain technology to empower their studies, organize their personal projects, build international relationships revolving around their professional interests, mitigate crippling student tuition, and overall incentivize high productivity and enjoyment.

Decentralizing Education & Collection


Education is ripe for disruption. The age-old systems of linear lecture halls and A-F/Pass-Fail grading systems are subject to the whims of high-powered individuals and bureaucratic structures. Anyone who is in or has recently graduated from higher education knows the extent to which universities have become more like businesses.

So let’s take the Steem blockchain, open up that rigid structure and gamify the student experience. We can reward the next generation of scholars in a way we have never seen before. No longer should students, our most optimistic and potent demographic, have to worry about loans or spend countless hours hunting for grants and scholarships. Instead, we should reward them based on the knowledge that they contribute and produce. Not only is this a great functional alternative, but this should also nurture new forms of knowledge creation on the web as a whole.

For the Spring 2018 semester, Temple University students, faculty, followers and friends will have opportunities to access extensive collections of artifacts and archives throughout the city’s history institutions, with a special focus on the Philadelphia History Museum. The course will mine lost narratives embedded in historical holdings and will breathe 21st century life into vintage collections.

These vintage collections at PHM are rarely accessible to the public, let alone the blockchain! One of our goals is to provide a proof-of-concept; illustrating how 20th century institutions can enliven (and re-value) artifacts of the past.

The Philadelphia History Museum collection consists of more than 130,000 artifacts including furniture, paintings, prints, photographs, books, signage, tools, clothing, maps, architectural models, scrapbooks, clocks, carts, etc. In teaming up with Temple, the PHM is exploring new strategies to enliven and enrich its massive holdings, a collection that is largely curated behind closed doors and locked drawers.

Steem-Powered Brainstorming


So at this point, we’ve set up the framework for an upcoming semester powered by the Steem ecosystem. We’ll organize further with Professor @kenfinkel to bring on a group of curious students and pave a robust roadmap for the Spring. But there’s so much potential to explore ideas of what we could incorporate! Components such as a grading system, peer-reviews, collaborative work, and general exposure are all parts to think more deeply on. We want your opinions, ideas, critiques, and suggestions of how to make this the most unique semester, the first to be fundamentally motivated by decentralized technologies.

Let us know what you think below!


@phillyhistory will be a platform for a graduate level course at Temple University: “Nonprofit Management for Historians” (History 5151) with Professor Kenneth Finkel, @kenfinkel in the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University (Philadelphia, US). Show your support by following the account and taking part beginning January 2018!

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This initiative is pretty powerful particularly because Ken has great knowledge and experience to offer! And I agree that education is ripe for disruption specifically because the costs are ridiculous. I have friends who are still paying off loans 25 years after graduation!

This one example of a grad school class via steemit is a great one and it opens many promising doors.

Having said that, one thing that is of concern to me with this paradigm shift is quality of education. Keeping in mind that school isn't as much about accumulating knowledge as it is about learning how to use one's brain, developing patience, critical thinking, discovering how to problem solve in the midst of challenges set up by someone who thinks differently than one does, getting out of one's comfort zone to try new approaches and developing the confidence and skills one can use to approach anything in life.

A person when left to his/her own devices tends to stay within a certain comfort zone simply because we can't know what or how much we don't know and this is where school is so useful.

There's this idea out there among high school grads right now about how they don't need school because after all what's the use of math or whatever classes that they aren't interested in? I've had long and drawn out conversations with 3 different 17-19 yr olds, and they are so passionately sure they know it all and have little value for how profoundly the mind can develop when immersed in college education. It is the nature of this age to have no idea just how much we don't know.

I for one still highly value the renaissance education and think that the humanities are more important than ever in this world where everything has become multi-disciplinary and requires agility to navigate the complex layers of social, economic, technical challenges we're faced with.

So circling back, from my point of view it'll be important within this disruptive shift in education to keep an eye on who will be teaching, will the teacher offer not just knowledge but also the key goal of education which is to develop critical thinking skills? How will we create paradigms that maintain depth in learning and not just variety (like we see out there now most often with tutorials and such on youtube)? How do we create incentives to help students stick out the inevitable discomfort of challenge within classes as well as within a program of learning?

Lol, this could have been a post ;-)

@natureofbeing, this is perfect. Thank your for such an insightful comment!

...school isn't as much about accumulating knowledge as it is about learning how to use one's brain, developing patience, critical thinking, discovering how to problem solve in the midst of challenges set up by someone who thinks differently than one does, getting out of one's comfort zone to try new approaches and developing the confidence and skills one can use to approach anything in life.

A person when left to his/her own devices tends to stay within a certain comfort zone simply because we can't know what or how much we don't know and this is where school is so useful.

We 100% agree. It's critical with the "decentralize everything" mindset to keep checks/balances in place. Great accumulation of information doesn't correlate to a better understanding of something. A physical campus is so important to cultivate this balance of exposure, checks and balances as students learn, mature, and are challenged.

What we like about this particular course, is that it's being taught at a graduate level. These students (more so than undergrads) are actively positioning themselves to launch into the professional landscape. We hope that exposure to blockchain / steemit becomes a valuable resource for them in both within the academic setting of next year but also professionally in the next couple years. We hope the timing is good here, in order to yield the best impact. Impact (two ways) in terms of the students and the online community we have here today.

Lot's of exciting work ahead. We look forward to collaborating with Steemit Stewards such as yourself as these students begin to uncover the many layers of the blockchain world.

Great initiative, keep up the good work.

Great initiative! the student don't know it yet but they will be grateful to be on steemit so early on.

We hope so! I think it'll be an exciting resource for them to tap into and begin to understand. Especially being at the graduate level, these students can begin to implement Steem-related apps within their own professional work within the next year or so. Timing is key!

Glad to see so much interest from the get go! Thanks @sndbox!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

This is a great idea! We are trying to do the same at a more basic level, publishing on STEEMIT some of the free lessons available on our website. Our mission is to spread our knowledge among people interested in IT, Cryptography and Maths.

@sndbox From our point of view, it could be interesting to add a "CHANNEL FEATURE" to STEEMIT. So, if someone is organizing different online courses or writes on different topics, he could split the posts in dedicated channels and users could decide to follow just one channel or the other.

I like this idea @rosargia!

thanks boss upvote and resteem..

Thanks @phillyhistory! It'll be exciting to rally a good base ahead of the class in January. When everything kicks off the students will have some interesting conversations and debates waiting for them.

cool :)

This is a great idea, glad someone is starting something education related on Steemit. I do have a few questions :

  • How will Steemit be used as a platform to deliver content?
  • How will the students' grasp on knowledge be assessed? Thus far Steemit's upvoting + reputation systems are great, but may not reliably assess the students' abilities.
  • Indexing the notes/content can be difficult as such, how can the course allow for students to go back to content that was published some time back?

I too am exploring how a course can be better implemented on Steemit and these are the challenges. Nonetheless, hope to hear your thoughts and great idea!

@alvinauh, thanks so much for these great comments.

  • (Part 1 and 2) @kenfinkel will be using @phillyhistory as a curator to moderate / reward student content. We're currently working closely with the account to develop voting metrics that correspond to grading. (Which will be an interesting experiment.) The Steemit public and @sndbox community will be encouraged to engage with these students / ask productive questions and also help explore (mine) valuable content.
  • The #explore1918 tag will be a way for students to explore Philly history / archive articles. We'll also be incentivizing the Steemit public to explore that timeframe as it relates to their own city. 1918 was a particularly interesting year for not just Philadelphia, but the world. There's overlap of narrative there that will be exciting to uncover.
  • Overall, we anticipate the upcoming "communities" feature could play a huge role in organizing research material and the funding accumulated throughout the semester. (There are ways of bootstrapping this without the feature, if need be.)

We look forward to you and others challenging students to present their content and their findings!

this is a very good idea, I am very happy to see someone like you who has a good idea for the benefit of many people, you are amazing friend, someone like you deserve praise

Thanks so much for the kind words of support!

With the above, I hope other institutes gets to enjoy this and other benefits that may arise in the nearest future

Definitely, that's our hope as well... ideally we could use this as a springboard for more educational projects / share a model for others to use too!

this is an amazing project and a pilot model for other ideas like that to be developed around the world - I'm thinking to someone like that for the Florence University

That's a fantastic idea Paolo! We should chat about this further, would love to help if we can :)

we'll do. :)

This is the kind of stuff that makes me excited for the future! Such an exciting new world we are exploring!

Yes it so cool how ideas find new fertile ground to grow on. Who would have thought that steemit can be used in such an exciting way. We are part of a new golden era for humanity and the last one has not even ended.

My feelings exactly.

Absolutely! There's a dynamic and bright future here regarding education & blockchain. Thanks @terrorfirma

great initiative but will these students be properly rewarded or they will become victims or self-voting and vote-selling

That's an important question, it's an open marketplace here... so we imagine each student will have their own strategy to promote their content. We'll be working with @phillyhistory to come up with "grading rubrics" that correspond to @sndbox upvotes. It will be an interesting structure for them to play and explore with.

any thing that develope steemit is good, the education is very important, and we need even to educate people about smm (social media marketing) I think it's the most important here in steemit to get rid from spammers and people that don't even know how to blog or even how to talk to others.

This is actually pretty cool. I love seeing things like this that get students involved in the future. It is particularly interesting to me because in my Economics class in my high school, we have actually started a school project that utilizes steemit and we have a goal to invest in bitcoin and learn from the experience.

Wow, that's fascinating! Such a great initiative drawing in Economics students into the Steemit world.

Bringing innovative ideas to education or teaching is always and should be a norm in the entire educational system of each and every country. Since learning is not a stagnant system, it is very much welcome to use this platform to bring these wonderful learning materials to all generations of of learners from all over the world. And taking advantage of this blockchain/steemit will sure enhance and motivate student participation to this endeavor.

Good job.

We couldn't agree more @guruvaj, thanks for the insightful comment. Learning should certainly not be a stagnant system, our hope is that Steemit provides a jolt of exposure that students (and professors) can be empowered through.

This is what I would call super duper innovative and pushing the envelope for technological advancement👏👏👏👏👏

Thank you for the kind words @normalbro! We'll be working to push the envelope on this one. Exciting months ahead :)

Thanks to @sndbox to help vision, frame, design support and implement this hybrid experiment in education online and in the classroom. Stay tuned for more @philahistory. It's bound to be an exciting semester.

Thanks for the kind words @kenfinkel! Looking forward to an exciting Spring 2018!

i like your post thanks for upvote and resteem..

Being mostly self-educated, this is a fresh breeze to me!

People who maybe cant afford a formal education can still have access to verified information when this kind of projects are more widely implemented.

I was fortunate to grow up in an enlightened and relatively privileged environment - me choosing to take the byways was more a resolution not to be swept along any mainstream avenues..a personal rebellion of sorts inspired by seeing the effects of indoctrination and over-specializing.

Follow up and investigate and gain insight in what matters and makes sense in terms of improving quality of life in general...the way to go!

technology enriched life elated steemit it to stunn

WOW.Thats awesome.They may not appreciate it now, but trust me, they will be very thankful in the future.I am wishing i had this oppurtunity. KUDOS

Another great share.

feels more like a Blockchain of education that's awsome

Hells yeah. Can we make steem kitties while we're at it?

Great post! I like it :) You have my follow and upvote ;) Also, I would appreciate if you could check out my profile :)

Hey it's really a good post.
@sndbox I am really new in here. Please help me?

@fitinfun thanks...

You're welcome - just keep learning and trying :)

I like this sand box...

i have a some question and helps
can we use one landing page in CPA for promoting different CPA jobs. and can you make paid traffic for CPA I will b really thankfull if you do it for me

Nice opst

i appreciate this idea and some will get benefit

This sounds incredible, the more education the better

Love the idea. Are you aware of anyone trying to create some kind of button that would allow me to either subscribe or pay a fee and have my steemit account debited automatically? In this case, you could offer a price via steem for this course and when I sign up I could have the cost debited automatically from my steemit account.

Thank you for the knowledge.

Sizin postlarinizi her an karsima cikiyor @sndbox . Bu da be kadar kaliteli iş yaptiginizin gostergesu oluyor.upvote ve resteem olaylarini anlatan yaziniz cok degerli. Bu yola beraber ciktigim arkadaslarim @bahadirk ve @ebruaydogdu ya da soyledim sizi takip etmesi gerektigini.yazdiginiz bu postu hic sıkılmadan okudum.gayet anlasilir acik ve akici olmus. Bunun icin size tesekkur ederim.
Steemit ailesinde olarak cok yararli postlariniz oldugunun farkindayim.
Basarilarinizin devamini dilerim iyi calismalar

This is a really intriguing idea. As some one who posts educational information onto steemit and YouTube, im glad to see the former becoming more useful for this type of content.

Thanks @tensor glad this resonated with you as both an educator and Steemian :)

This is amazing, I wonder how we can collaborate, I'm currently working on a learning platform called DLearn with a similar vision. Here's a write-up about the project -> https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@debraycodes/dlearn-education-decentralized-making-quality-education-accessible-to-all

buenisimo post thousand congratulations for always showing quality in the material that you present in your publications

Truly groundbreaking; best of luck @sndbox @kenfinkel and @phillyhistory!! :D

This post has been voted on from MSP3K courtesy of @netuoso from the Minnow Support Project ( @minnowsupport ).

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Thanks :D

now student can have some profit through their article. It may help them survive through the debt they carry

Excellent Job

Its a great idea, me as an educator want to collaborate with this and to the near future! Keep in touch!

Thanks for sharing @sndbox

Thanks so much for reading and supporting :)

I can see that steemit is more than just an incentivized blogging platform, it's going to be the largest open source of information of different fields that can be used by many as reliable reference and educate people without a cost. I am very excited and thrilled on how steemit will go in the future! Yay! Everyone could really benefit to it.

That is an awesome initiative, I wish more schools were as open minded as yours ! :)

Wow! this sounds like a great concept. Look forward to the updates.

Nice initiative...Good luck

This is a great idea @sndbox ! Resteemed.

So many things to learn. thanks

very informative ............@sndbox

I've studied International Relations and used to tutor social studies & US history. I'll be following you throughout this "journey" of yours.

Congratulations @sndbox!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:

  • Pending payout - Ranked 2 with $ 245,11

This is brilliant and I certainly love the idea of mitigating tuition with Steem earnings.

I was tempted to say "why stop at history" but a moments thought made me ask a better question: "What better start could there be than history?" I mean, if you're looking for a field where grad-school-level posts can draw interest from all walks of life and nearly all levels of education, history is impossible to beat, I think.

So heck yeah, by all means, roll with that 👍👏

Thanks so much @edumurphy! Likewise, we think history is a perfect place to start. These students are already excellent researchers, writers, story discoverers in their own right. We hope Steemit (as a blog forum) becomes a natural extension of their experiences already!

Nice techniques and innovation

This is exactly what our world needs...it will empower learning for so many who really need it. Great idea! Thanks @sndbox.

Very informative. upvoted, steem on!

In one word Impressive.

Very refreshing... education is always worth investing in!

I say YES to blockchain education. This post has been deemed resteem & upvote worthy by your friendly @eastcoaststeem ran by @chelsea88 (not a bot)

It's high time education needs to be decentralized as well. I was just reading about the concept of BitDegree and I absolutely loved it! To check out more about BitDegree, go here https://stude.co/19776

Dream come true for South Africa. Are we part of your global plan?

The city is like this

Wow, I'm amazed at the rapidness of this technology. The sky seems to be the limit. Really great initiative. Onward!

This is a really great initiative.

I've always found the UI & UX of MOOCs to be too close to the old brick & mortar classroom system & not native enough to what the internet can intrinsically offer. Maybe the steemit, with its rewards system, can help this. Much of academia is run who socialists anyway.

As a former academic, my biggest hope is for something like Steem to thoroughly disrupt academic publishing, particularly replacing journals with their corrupt peer-reviewing.

the education system is one that has not witnessed any significant improvement for a very long time i think blockchain is going to do something about that

i can't thnk abt dt

This is, easily, one of the BEST initiatives i've seen in a very long time. I can imagine this working on universities in developing countries as well in a near future.

My job got me lots of contacts in universities in Mexico. I keep thinking this kind of project (Maybe a near-future extension of this one or an adaptation) could be a revolutionary initiative in here.

Is there any limit to what the Steem Blockchain can be used for? This is another fantastic initiative.

This is epic; this is powerful. Kudos to the brains behind this. Congratulations

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

I have a suggestion, the course is going to need some donations. I'm willing to donate at least 1 steem dollar to one of the people behind this group. My funds are here are small. What would be your recommendation who to send it to. I suggest that other members do the same. We also could donate real $'s, bitcoin or Ethereum to help get the project rolling. Finally all donations will either be 100% for the start up costs or for a pool to help the students get their first curation rewards. Any thoughts or comments too this suggestion ?

Nice post..

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Nice

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  ·  7 years ago Reveal Comment

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