Blockchain and Education – a marriage made in heaven?

We all think that Digital Ledger Technology (DLT) can help with our educational system.  But, how can it?  And why are college students gravitating towards blockchain technology?  I have split this up into two posts.  Let’s explore first how DLT and blockchain technology can help Education around the world.

Part 1:

Being a life long learner and having an interest in distributive ledger technology (DLT) and blockchain type technology it got me thinking, “How can blockchain and DLT help with education?”  The main issue is that unlike in financial systems Bitcoin and other digital currencies are wonderful and have a great purpose.  But, how can we incorporate Blockchain and most importantly DLT’s in education? After researching the subject I have found the following:

There are 4 main areas where DLT technology can help with education:

1. Administrative and financial recordkeeping (yes just as in Bitcoin and digital currency this could also help with the business operation of education institutions).
2. Student records.  In this scenario, since blockchain (one type of DLT’s) is immutable and transparent they are great for keeping actual records of student’s achievements.
3. Learner and Content creator (whether it be faculty members, teachers or instructional designers).  With a system that is based on blockchain technology, a system could be devised to provide an incentive for completing courses and or creating content that learners love to engage in.  With this system, the learner, facilitator, and instructional designer could earn tokens for completing work, rating professors, or creating great engaging content.
4. Learning outcome evaluation.  In education, there is a formative and summative evaluation.  One of the complex issues is how the student really doing in the course?  With a DLT solution, the interactions of the Learning Management System (LMS) can be a ledger style system.   Actually, in today’s times, there is such a thing as a Learning Record Store (LRS) that utilizes an Experience Programmer’s Interface (xAPI).  This system could be based on blockchain technology.

In the paper titled, “BLOCKCHAIN ENABLED E-LEARNING DELIVERY MODEL FOR ENHANCED QUALITY LEARNING” The authors have concluded that there has to be an enhanced funnel method for online learning in regards to incorporating blockchain technology within the e-learning system.  Within this funnel system you have 3 main components:

1. Materials development and instructional design
2. Governance and Finance
3. Technology and delivery

From this, we can reason that there are numerous ways that we can utilize DLT technology to help education.  Though we would be incorporating a new “Proof of Learning” conceptual algorithm instead of “Proof of Work” or other algorithms that are utilized in financial use cases.

In part 2 of our series, we will look into why students, especially college students gravitate to Blockchain Technology.

References:

Blockchain enabled E-learning Delivery Model For Enhanced Quality Learning
Nyangaresi-Vincent Omollo- Slivance – http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/3270