Gamification and Blockchain in Education

I am hoping that someone who is an administrator sees this article. For one, it will be a really cool project to implement, also, it encompasses two topics that are considered revolutionary in their respective fields. These topics are Gamification and Blockchain technology.

You can read about my article on Gamification and a plan on how to carry out a Gamified lesson in the classroom. In a nutshell, gamification is making any lesson into a game. Since most children play games either on a device or in real life, gamification is thought to have the potential to improve learning.

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On the other hand, you have blockchain technology which is being used and implemented in many aspects of our lives, especially currency. However, one thing that blockchain is good at is to store information reliably, thus the ledger. If you do a quick search on Steemit, you would find that some articles have mentioned the use of Blockchain in education. However, I would like to offer a different perspective of how blockchain and gamification can be used in education.

A gamified education system

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Depending on the country you are in, a student must study approximately four to ten subjects in school per semester. Most education systems favor a uniformed education system where students study similar subjects. This makes managing the teachers and students easier. As such, you will likely produce students who are good at those four to ten subjects only.

However, this gives room for 'non-essential' subjects such as music, art and sports to be neglected. Conventionally, academic subjects such as science is favored. To change this, learning should be placed in the hands of the students. Imagine education as one big Role Playing Game where you decide what 'quests' to pursue to complete the game. Perhaps you love music and the arts or maybe you would prefer to study biology. Any of these subjects can be seen as quests. Once the quest is completed, you get awarded with a token. The more tokens you have, it increases your chance of success in the next level.

The next level in this case could perhaps be in the form of advancing to the next level or entry to a school of choice. So why tokens you may ask?

Tokens

Tokens are the rewards one obtained from playing the game we call school. In this Gamified-Blockchain-Education system, each token can be a form of digital 'currency'. Specific tokens can be collected to show how one is qualified to pursue a certain specialty. As mentioned before, if a person pursued music and collected quite a large number of the music token, that can help the student gain entry to a musical academy and continue his/her quest.

In addition, the use of tokens can provide the students with the freedom to pursue whatever skills they want. That also allows certain practical skills to be implemented instead of fully academic papers. Assessment for either practical or academic papers can be implemented however the teachers deem fit. In addition, proof of qualification can be given in the form of a token.

These tokens can also have the potential to be used for job interviews. It would be quite interesting for the employers to access one's tokens all at once to see how qualified a student is. This also takes away the 'paper qualification' stigma as practical skills courses can also be used to help these students earn tokens.

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Proof of qualification

Another advantage of having these tokens would be that the school administrators, parents or even future employers can see the extent of a students' qualification. This allows for continuous assessment of the child's progress to be monitored. If the teacher feels that a certain path the child has taken is inappropriate, the teacher can better advice the child to take the right classes for the right tokens.

In addition, pursuing all these tokens can be compared to collecting certificates, collecting scout badges or even collecting certain toys. It provides a sense of achievement and it makes learning less tedious. It also puts the students time to good use, pursuing things of interest that can help qualify them for their dream jobs or just their passion in general.

Conclusion

There are downsides to such a system being implemented. One of them is the complete change an education system has to go through to achieve this. This requires money, resources and research. Furthermore, as education becomes less uniformed, the teachers and administrator may face difficulties managing all the students and guiding them. As such, it would not be surprising if some students may become victims as the teacher or administrator becomes overwhelmed.

However, I do believe that there is potential here and I think the future of education would either be a gamified system, a blockchain system or both.

I hope this has been informative. This article is my understanding of how all gamification and blockchain can work in tandem. However, if you have any comments on how this can be improved upon, feel free to let me know in the comments below.

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