I’m teaching an Intro to Investments course at my university and plan on integrating both Steemit and Bitshares into the curriculum. The plan is to have each student create a Steemit account and base part of the participation grade on their interactions in the #finance, #economics, or #investing tagged posts. The goal is to get them actively thinking about current events and contributing to a thoughtful community discussion.
The plan with using Bitshares is to give each student about 10 USD worth of BTS, have them set up accounts on OpenLedger, and instigate a trading contest. I’ll have them run through some basic exercises, like borrowing smartcoins, playing market maker, and taking directional bets on whatever assets they find interesting.
Why am I doing this instead of just teaching from the textbook? While there will be the usual textbook learning and exams, there’s no better way to learn than actually getting your hands dirty and having some skin in the game. Plus, an investments course that doesn’t at least mention cryptofinance these days is just outdated.
Any other ideas on using Steemit or Bitshares for the course? At the current exchange rate I’ll need about 35,000 BTS for the experiment and plan on self-financing it, but if anyone else in the community wants to help you can send donations to Bitshares account: cylonmaker2053.
I'll definitely be posting updates as we go along and hopefully the students will comment on their experiences.
oh man you should definitely join us for our weekly hangout and let everyone know about this!
RSVP here: https://steemit.com/beyondbitcoin/@officialfuzzy/beyond-bitcoin-hangout-162-7-1-16-rsvp-to-friday-s-hangout-ask-q-s-suggest-topics-or-promote-your-favorite-project
cool thanks for the suggestion. Just replied to that thread confirming i'm planning to attend...
hmm just a thought but have you thought about offering this course not only through your university but say also online through a host site like maybe https://www.coursera.org
I wouldn't mind taking this course and since I love coursera... I'm totally pushing for you to offer it on there as well!👍
i'm also a big Coursera fan and would love to do that in the future, but def no time getting permission from the Department and/or business school at this point, or in thinking about how to design it for open access. Class starts next week...
That's a great suggestion though, and i hope to contribute to the MOOC world soon.
You know about coursera! I'm so excited what a Plethora of knowledge on that site, I attribute a lot of the education of gained to that site.
Super stoked youve already heard about it. All the best and if you do offer some courses online id love to sign up.
PS im probably gonna follow you for the potential future education opportunities.
yeah i've also spent a lot of time on Coursera and EdX ...amazing how quality education is becoming essentially open source these days. Walls are being torn down every day it seems...
Also Udemy.com is a good one for that; I haven't heard of Coursera, I'll check that out.
CG
Great work!, 35000 BTS should be worth a lot more in the next couple of weeks, good to get in early.
100% agree that hands on approach will be much more valuable then just reading from a book; It would be great to hear how you are introducing Steem and Bitshares into your class on our weekly hangout!
they should earn money on steemit to use it as investment on bitshares dex. would be a very rewarding experience, at least for me :)
This is an amazing idea, your pupils are lucky to have you, the world needs more good teachers that understand the amazing times we are in. Future innovation in education will come from the teachers and pupils creating new ways together instead of a governmental department or another big organization that only looks at numbers.
Now this, this is a thread ^ 👍
What an awesome idea, this will bring so many new minds to this project! Well done :-)
CG
This would be a great opportunity to get feedback for Bitshares - what's good and what can be improved.
i agree. i have to admit, more hands on testing of Bitshares, especially for a consolidated group that's learning investing and has zero prior knowledge of crypto, is part of my goal here. It'll be interesting to see what they like, don't like, what they think can be improved, how they think Bitshares can grow its market, etc.
Your students are in for a treat.
we'll see what they say, class just started this week. Some of them should start getting active on here shortly.
Hey @cylonmaker2053. Which University do you teach at?
I'm at the University of South Carolina
Cool. I live in Charleston. Maybe we can work together on some local projects sometime ;)
Definitely. Shoot me a message [email protected]
I live in Mt Pleasant. I think it's a great idea. You guys need to check out my post about #investing and let me know what you think - I love it https://steemit.com/trading/@wymetto/control-your-own-money-here-is-how-to-do-it