Paying Students to do Homework on Steemit...
Had this idea the other day sitting in a training. The school that me and @vegansilverstack work at is a "low income school" which means that a high percentage of the students live in poverty. This is probably not uncommon around the world, but our school is lucky enough to get benefits, like free lunch for all students. I've heard of a lot of ways to motivate students, but it is almost all BS. The question is: Would it work for these kids? They have more problems than just money, like drug addicted parents that leech off of their children. A lot of my students have jobs to support their family or take care of their siblings excessively. Obviously this is fu**ed and it shouldn't be like this. Yes, I had a job as a HS student tutoring, but it was a choice I made to help grow-up myself.
How it would work...
Make an account and put it 1000 Steem or so. Also, have the kids make "student" accounts where they can only post homework and no resteems. Late turn in receive no up-vote. On-time or early turn-ins receive a vote based on quality (this can help you with physical grades as well). There must be different homework versions. Students can gain extra credit by posting educational post that classmates can read, related or not related to the class. You are not giving them much, but it is a start to their investment in life.
Potential Problems
- Cheating is always an issue, so you have to make thoughtful homework to avoid this. Catch a student cheating receives no up-vote and a zero for the assignment.
- There is an NSFW tab. This is the reason that schools would be reluctant to allow it.
I would love to do this too, and I think a positive thing would be that there honestly wouldn't be a huge turnout (I don't think). The only thing would be if da' boss doesn't like it or like you said because of the NSFW section would not allow it. The only thing I can think of would be to offer it for students that are 18+ or to get parents' permission for them to post on Steemit first (obviously a call and not just a signature). I think if you were to get all of those things, you'd be golden. Another thing might be to just offer it to students who you know are looking for a job but are having trouble finding one. I feel like a lot of students wouldn't want to take the time to make posts, but there would be a minority that probably would be on board. It'd be tough to do it for one class though, because if the other classes got word there might be some jealousy (tough.) On a whole I love the idea, as I'm a libertarian, love open, free-market solutions to present day problems (blockchain = future) and think that this platform is going to be so beneficial for education in one way or another. Could you imagine if like Wikipedia writers got together to start making posts on here instead of Wikipedia? I'm very interested to see how this site/platform evolves.
Steemit is my wikipedia for a lot of things. Lol. I wish we could do this, but again it probably wouldn't work out for the top of the chain. They might not even be able to get steemit on the chromebooks.
I think they can - I want to say I could get on a student's chromebook as of last year I believe... I think it's also so low key that Marlon hasn't even heard of it... Unless he searched our histories lol
Yeah. Lol. Doubt he has time for that.
Sounds like a good plan but over coming the NSFW issue would be difficult.
Yeah. We'll see!
@
hansenator
It is a good thing that you have in mind. How well it would work out in real time is another question.
One thing we know to be true. If it was easy. Everyone would doing it.
So, if you are truly committed. Good things can happen. Most ideas likely need more that one week to think about. How to set up something new and unique would require some time and a little planning was well.
I wish you well, whatever you decide.
Francis
Thank you for your thoughts Francis! I will maybe try it with an upper level class, so I can trust them not to break rules I set. We will see!
I think its a good idea - anything to motivate the kids in learning and spending their time in useful ways in which they can also benefit from is awesome!
A potential problem I foresee is that (rival) classmates down-voting each other or spamming to get their own posts rating higher - or down-voting, flagging each other as bullying.
Every good idea has its snags and I'm sure there are creative ways around these problems.
Well the amount of money it makes in the end doesn't really matter for their class grade. Just how well they do on the assignment. Maybe I'll implement it in my programming class.
I just spoke to a primary and Intermediate school about Steemit, they love the idea, but had concerns if the school could join, as the kids where under age, but do a school account they would need to check the ministry of educations rules.
With olders kids if the school allowed it, you could have a parent meeting to discuss it, you could do a pilot class to see if it works, or ask who would be interested in doing it, make it an extra activity for those interest.
Sounds very interesting wish you all the best!
Thank you for your thoughts biglipsmama! I'll be thinking about it. Maybe I can start a trend. The assignment would have to be more like projects I guess to make it more interesting.
you and vegan are at the same school? that's too cool (-:
Yeah. Haha. Thanks to him I learned about Steemit.
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Steem on!
Thank you for the resteem @steemiteducation! Much appreciated. I am planning on talking to the principal today to try with an upper level class!
This is a great idea - goodness some people amazes me with their ideas they come up with - well done - hope you can work it all out and maybe get it going
I really think it would work to motivate our low-income kids! They need the job and it's not taking time away from them and their families.
That is an interesting idea. Here in Japan there would be a problem with the students being required to post in a public space. The privacy rules for students can be pretty complicated to navigate, especially for those in the secondary school system. Higher ed is a little more flexible, but not much.
That said, I will be thinking about this idea quite a bit before the next semester starts!
That is strange. Yeah... Laws in China have to be extremely different! My cousin actually lived there to intern for a bank to trade stocks and options. It would definitely work in college (if you made it optional). I was thinking I could test it for higher level students (like my Advance Computer Science class).