We all know that Steem is groundbreaking but has yet to even come close to reaching its full potential. Steem has created an experimental economic model that’s so much greater than a simple social media website and blogging platform. It's ripe with creative possibilities and is really only limited by our imaginations.
I’d like to share with you one idea that came to me a few days ago. Perhaps we can collaborate and grow this concept into a working model.
A model for education on Steem (courses, workshops, etc.)
- Instructors release weekly courses with required assignments
- Students post their assignments on Steemit, Dtube or other Steem platform
- Teachers “grade" assignments via upvoting percentage
Workshops can be paid via SBD/Steem, require 100% upvote or be 100% free with no obligations. All are free to learn and participate in the course, but those “enrolled” in the class have direct access to the instructor and receive feedback and upvotes for their participation and assignment submissions. A hierarchy can also be created where there is one instructor who delegates SP to a number of assistants who then mentor students and “grade” work. Having high-quality course material on the Steem platform will greatly increase the value of the blockchain.
Fictional Example
Intro to Web Design Workshop
After receiving a lot of great feedback from a few of her instructional videos on DTube, an experienced web designer decides to put together a 10 part series on web design for beginners. With the time she has available, she can mentor up to 10 students through her material. So she puts up a post on Steemit overviewing the workshop.
- 10 Steem to join
- 10 courses released weekly
- 10 weekly assignments
- 1 final assignment
- Students receive 1 on 1 mentorship for the length of the course via Discord
- Students receive 50 -100% upvote for their work based on quality
Each week she releases a DTube video and an assignment for her students and those following along. Every week her students publish their assignments on Steem and she hands out her upvotes and leaves them valuable feedback in the comments.
After 1 year of running these workshops, the interest begins to explode. She can no longer keep up with the demand on her own, so she finds well-qualified people that can work under her. She delegates 500 Steem to 10 assistants and they each take on 10 students for the workshop. The assistants receive 50% of the enrollment fee, and the rest goes to her. The course is now mentoring 100 students directly and teaching thousands of people who are following along. The assistants choose the top 10 assignments and she, the instructor, gives each one chosen a 100% upvote and resteem.
The material that can be covered is endless. Obviously, I think we would see a lot of blogging, writing, and Steemit related workshops, but programming, design, art, farming, and food-related workshops could explode as well. I think the concept has a lot of potential to bring people to Steem as well as grow the quality and depth of content available here.
This is really interesting because, although I wasn't planning on quite doing 1 on 1 instruction situations, one of my aims on steemit is to spread my love and passion for my profession, animation, through a series of educational posts and tutorials of increasing difficulty.
I think one of the "problems" with this model is though, that the classes the instructor puts up are forever viewable by anyone on the blockchain. and while that's great for education in general, it's not so great for the individual teachers at some point because at the end of the day anyone who is disciplined enough to self-teach can go through the material and classes without "paying" for the content.
The only thing I suppose that students would then pay for is the one on one tutoring and assignment corrections.
I mean, I still think it's great, and knowledge should be shared anyway (hence I'm passing on my knowhow too) but it might not end up being super attractive for some people who've spent long years accumulating their knowledge and knowhow.
I don't know...
Interesting concept in any case!
Yeah, that's the big "hole" in the model I'm trying to work out. How do you create some passive income off of the invested time and work creating the course material. This is why I am a proponent of the the 1 on 1 and "grading" model. It allows the students to get valuable feedback from their instructor. I can see well respected instructors in their fields charging quite a bit. Since it is all visible on the blockchain it's verifiable for students which could lead to real world opportunities.
It's also a great way for new professionals and instructors on Steem to gain a following. The one thing more valuable than a large payout is a quality follower. It would be worth putting in the work early even if the payouts aren't high.
Also, there are creative ways to "remonetize" work that has already been published. Revising some of the course material and running another workshop is totally possible, as long as it's altered or refreshed to some degree. You could also publish critiques of student work that could gain upvotes. The possibilities are there, but will require some serious collaboration, creativity, and trial and error, I think.
I like your thinking. When assignments are posted there is also the scope for interaction and feedback with the teacher via the comments. The only drawback would be finding a way to award some sort of certification that would be accepted in the business world as proof of what you know. It's a pet hate of mine, but it doesn't matter what you know when you apply for work if you don't have the certificates to back it up.
I wouldn't go with payment as its my belief that education should be free to all, however, purely doing this on Steemit has the affect of bringing reward via upvotes, so no one loses out.
This is something that is in line with a new account I've started and I would be happy to try and support you in any way I can if you wished to delve into this more. The introduction post is here: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@life-relearnt/what-is-the-life-relearnt-project
I totally agree, that education should be free. And I still think even in the “paid” model here it’s still free. I like the “paid” model because it allows educators to focus more time on building quality content that will be released for free on Steem, and be able to invest 1 on 1 time with the students. The students will actually get their money back through the upvote by the instructor, other students and the Steem community. But the completely free model word just as well, the more options the better I think.
I followed your @life-relearnt project and upvotes. I think it’s a great project, I’d liked to be involved however I can. Thanks for the thoughtful reply 😄
I hope we can keep in touch with regards to this. I'd love it if you could let me know if you post any more on this sort of thing as I know I don't always get chance to check in and miss things.
Btw, I hope you're here to stay on Steemit; your writing is very insightful.
I’ll be sure to let you know on any further develops here. And I don’t plan on leaving Steem anytime soon, I’m a bonafide Steem junkie 🤪
It feels like everthing that’s available on the internet will be available on this platform at some point. And having applications where SBD can be exchanged for goods and services directly is so excellent. I don’t know much about cryptostuff, but it seems to me that if enough applications came along to provide an easy, fast, practical way to use SBD, then the value would go up.
Ohhh! that is great for redfish and minnows. Steemit will come somewhere in the future for sure and everyone (offcourse not everyone I meant) should get ready for it. Thanks for leting us this opportunity. Upvoted and Followed happily. Hugs from Spain.
This is a really good project. Great idea. Followed you. Resteemed. Looking forward to hear more information about online education.
This is a very novel idea, and the certificates of participation offered will be authentic and easily verifiable
Hey @theferalone i think thats a great idea tho, unfortunately i don't have time to prepare online courses and such things, but i definitely could act as a mentor in your (fictional) web design idea.
you should talk to aggroed about this as he is planning to set up a radio slash film studio. We already have Minnow School, which is a series of articles for learners. This sounds like one step further.
That would be awesome. I know he's pretty busy running MSP/PAL, but it would be great to start collaborating and fleshing out this concept with him and others.