Developing a Proof of Concept for Education on Steemit
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.
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.
@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!
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!
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!
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 :
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.
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.