Steemit University - Emergent Education

In my previous post, Steemit’s Model Applied to Education, I took a brief look at how we could improve education through the blockchain.  I had a lot of insightful comments from all sorts of perspectives and I felt it was worth trying to attempt to dig deeper into how I see this model operating.

If you haven’t noticed, even if we set aside the rest of the world, the US has some major issues with its educational system here at home.  While there are certainly pockets of schools and teachers that are more beneficial than not, they are not as prevalent as you may think, particularly for the most population dense areas in the country.

As you can see, in a place like Detroit, children are given little hope to become the people they are truly capable of shaping into.  It is no fault of theirs that their options are so limited.  It is our fault for not making these options available for them, while enabling lives of drug sales and crime, which often offer better returns than “legitimate” alternatives. (Thanks @limitless)

I pointed out how dire the situation is with student debt in our country.  How can a massive amount of debt for an unprepared student be a viable option to pursue?  It’s no wonder that crime is much higher in these areas, versus other parts of the country with better schools.

But I don’t want better schools.  @sterlinluxan will tell you just how inefficient it really is from a psychological perspective.  Brett Veinotte of the School Sucks Project will show you how bad it is from an educational standpoint.  Even when it “works”, it doesn’t work.  I want better for the children on this planet.  After all, they grow up to become the world, do they not?  So let’s flush this out some more and see if it really makes sense.

Steemit University

Johnny is from a distraught part of Detroit and doesn’t want to end up dead or in jail.  He also doesn’t want to work a remedial job for the rest of his life.  Johnny wants an exit.

Johnny is ambitious.  Perhaps his peers are not as ambitious, but that does not matter to Johnny and his future.  He decides to join Steemit University and augment his traditional schooling with the help of the Steem blockchain.  He sees that every course is arranged by different levels under different tags.  He starts at the beginning with Math 001, since he isn’t even sure that he knows what he thinks he knows.  He always uses the calculator on his phone and doesn’t want to have that crutch in life.

Johnny sees that in the thread, there are all sorts of different topics.  Basic algebra...basic geometry...hey, that looks fun.  Johnny likes designing things and plays Minecraft to have fun.  Shapes spark a curiosity so he clicks the most popular project in the list.  Oh fun, it’s a puzzle, almost like a game.  Johnny completes the puzzle, but wonders where all of the comments are from other students.  After he submits his comment, he sees a pop-up, informing him that his work is under review and within 12 hours (his payout) he will be able to see the other comments.

(Upon signing up, Johnny joined as a "student" and thus has different permissions to the content on the site than the "educators".  Educators have full access to all information in real time.  They are vetted through a thorough introduce yourself posts that run past other teachers and Recursive Delegated Voters for approval.  Students also require a vetting process to assist teachers in assessing whether the student is more advanced than they're leading on.)

Johnny continues onwards.  No point in waiting 12 hours, might as well push on.  Before he even finishes finding his next topic, he gets a reply.  It’s the teacher running the project he completed!

“Good job, Johnny!  Check out my next post in my blog.  I posted my classes in order, so students can follow along with my syllabus.  I have attached it below, along with additional outlines and notes to help you out.  If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out and I’m so glad to see you learning on here!  Welcome!”

Johnny feels encouraged and sees he even has a penny pending because of the upvote the teacher gave his comment.  He dives right into the next project, while his energy is high.  He submits that one, and minutes later receives another encouraging message from the same teacher along with another upvote. This is going great!

All of a sudden, he gets hung up on the Pythagorean Theorem.  He forgets something, and can’t seem to get the right answer.  He submits what he thinks is the best answer and hopes he guessed properly.

“Hi, Johnny.  I see that you’re having a little trouble with this one, as you didn't include your work as required.  You need to earn the upvote, so let’s try breaking this down with a one-on-one google hangout for a few minutes.  Let me know when you have the time.  I want to make sure you understand this concept.”

Johnny is floored.  Here this teacher is voluntarily offering a one-on-one session to ensure that he understands this topic thoroughly.  He pounces at the opportunity.  Johnny is on to something here.

(This is also a great opportunity for the teacher to quickly assess his student to ensure their upvotes are not going to waste on someone who is cheating the process in some way.)

His teacher is proficient in many subjects, and since Johnny enjoys learning with him, he sticks with it.  After a while, Johnny is the top of his class, and actually working as an intern at a promising company.  His friends start to notice he also has a little extra money in his pockets.  Maybe they should check out what Johnny's up to, instead of going back to the drug dealer to make ends meet?

Now, why would this teacher be doing this?  Is he just a really good guy and likes helping people?  Perhaps, as there are a lot of these types in the world, particularly retired teachers and professors who really enjoyed nurturing children.  My grandmother was one of these teachers.  Even though she retired long ago, she often helped out at the school, up until she got cancer and passed a few years back.  Every child who ever had her, absolutely loved her.  I still run into people who had her 30 years ago and go out of their way to tell me how much she meant to them.  She even was on the Internet all the time, and I know that she would have been on this platform when she wasn't out gardening.  (I miss my grandmother greatly and I will make a post about just how wonderful she was in the future)

But there’s got to be a better reason to expect enough people to put in the necessary time to actually make this work.  So let's break down the economics that drive this system.

Economics

Teachers will make their money five ways:

• By posting content properly that other teachers and students like
• By curating content that teachers and students post
• By developing students as much as possible to increase their reputation
• By receiving donations
• By students and/or parents directly paying for their time

When a teacher makes a post, it will be upvoted, if people on the platform find it useful.  All of the reasons for flagging would still be on the table, including an extra emphasis on ensuring the information is accurate and not plagiarized.  To prevent flagging abuse by students, their flags cannot make content disappear on their own.  They require the support of other teachers, or Recursive Delegated Voters, in order to scrub bad content.

As the teacher does well on the platform, their reputation increases, making them stand out a little more from other teachers.  As their perceived reliability increases, their student base increases as well.  Students would simply follow these reputable teachers that they like, for as long as they are interested in those topics.  Remember, that students would be upvoting them, as well.

Donations may not seem like a viable revenue stream, but occasionally, thankful parents and students will tip their cap for a job well done and send them some Steem Dollars as a thank you. 

"I got a 1400 on my SAT!  Thanks for all your help!"

This will vary in size, of course, but it’s there, if they are good teachers.  Yet, as teachers become popular, their time will become more scarce.

Donations from students or parents would get their attention and give them additional reasons to offer their time, but at some point, the best teachers will need to put a price on their services, as they can’t be everywhere at once and only would want to focus on students who care enough to the point that they would actually invest in their time.  The costs could even be low, maybe even $5 for a half hour google hangout, since they have other money coming in from their other activities.  What it ultimately does is enable the teachers to gauge a threshold of interest in order to know that they are properly allocating their valuable time to committed students.

The students will also have revenue streams to finance these occasional costs due to their own activity on the site.  Instead of cashing out, or powering up their earnings, they have an incentive to re-invest in their continued education.  The teachers could then reinvest their earnings by getting more Steem power, and thus becoming a more prominent figure on the platform, yielding potentially bigger gains for them down the line.

Also remember, that this wouldn’t need to be a full time job for teachers.  They could do this as a financially incentivized hobby.  They could even philanthropically donate their returns back to the students they feel deserve them the most.  Many educators donate their time as is, and the positive environment on the site, may give them so much joy, that they simply won’t care about the money.

Even given all of this, the students and teachers that care can only do so much to keep this site in order, so this seems like a perfect use case for the Recursive Delegated Voting technique I mentioned previously.  These voters would be incentivized to ensure the quality of the content and people through the curation rewards their activities generate.  If they do their job exceptionally, whale teachers will be able to delegate some of their voting power to them to help them be more effective.  This would ease the pressure on the other users for having to keep the site clean and organized. 

The point is with all of this, that the educators will come, the curators will come, and the students will as well, for all the same reasons you all came here.  But will they stay?

Longevity

So long as the Steem blockchain is functional, the financial incentives align in such a way that there is no reason why this wouldn’t sustain itself.  It may not grow to the size and scope of taking over the entire educational system, but that’s not necessarily the goal here.  The goal is to start by offering a free outlet of education for anyone in the world who would like to participate, free of charge.  If we start with that, who knows where it will take us.

Pros

• Students can start at any age, with any level of knowledge, anywhere in the world, for free.
• Education would last a lifetime for people.  
  • Why stop learning at 18 or 22?  Learning is a wonderful thing, and the last time I looked around, I wasn't able to find anyone who knew everything.  Imagine children starting this process at a younger age.  Why would they ever stop participating in the site?  Again, so long as the blockchain is functional, then they have every reason to continue learning anything and everything they want to for the rest of their lives.
• Specialized educational outlets would emerge rapidly.
  • Teachers will want to get noticed, and the best way to do that is to find untapped niches on the platform and become the best teacher within that niche.  Why wouldn't there be chefs teaching people how to cook, or mechanics teaching people how to work on cars?  Anything and everything can be taught.  This isn't just about math and science.  This is about any and all life skills.  Don't you think it's important people learn money management skills?  How about learning about your emotions, and how to improve your relationships?  Wouldn't it be great if kids or adults could learn this stuff at any time in an amazing environment?  Don't all of these require teachers fluent in multiple languages?

Cons

• It's not built yet.
  • While we could accomplish something similar here at Steemit, I think a separate education-specific platform on the Steem blockchain would foster the best environment to see this project succeed.

Conclusion

I strongly believe that this model can not only work, but will work.  I have no coding skills to offer, but I am more than interested in helping to build this with other like minded people in any way that I can contribute.  I know that @limitless is equally as passionate about this and I know that there are many others on this site that are as well.  I created a tag #steemituniversity so anyone can contribute to it and help actually make this idea real.

Aside from cryptocurrencies, how we raise kids is the most important thing in the world to me.  It's clear as day that we can solve the problems in our world by doing a better job at this task.  @sterlinluxan is far better equipped than I to tell you exactly why this is true, so please follow him and check out his blog if these topics interest you.

I understand that it will likely take multiple generations to really see the world I want to see, but ideas like this will help get us moving towards a more peaceful world, where children are well versed in empathetic relationships, and equipped with an arsenal of skills to contribute massive amounts of value to our world.

I call on anyone who reads this to explore this topic further. Take an objective look at the way we raise kids now, and just stop and look at the world around us.  We CAN do better.  We WILL do better.  So let's get to it!

@derekareith