This post goes with the conference talk in which the MA{VR}X Lab director, Dr. Straight, provides a preliminary look at the lab’s Ed3 study and shares a collection of tools and resources to help folks find their way into the Ed3 space.
General
The following are general Web3, Ed3, and Web3-to-Ed3 resources.
From Web3 to Ed3 - Reimagining Education in a Decentralized World
- Education is key to human flourishing, but current models are not leading to optimal learning for the majority of people around the world.
- Web3 has enabled creators to own their work online, ed3 enables students to own their education.
- Nascent ed3 models are improving access, affordability, and accreditation, but more work needs to be done.
Making Sense of Web 3.0 in Education
“‘Web 3.0’ has been the center of much discussion this year. Advocates believe that Web 3.0 will unleash a radical and beneficial transformation of the Internet. Detractors claim that Web 3.0 is little more than a buzzword for marketing purposes. The following Q&A aims to introduce EdTechTeacher readers to Web 3.0 and outline how it may affect education.”
How Web3 can Revolutionize the Education Sector? - Blockchain Council
“Presently, the education system revolves around traditional pedagogical techniques where a major portion of the process is teacher-centric. However, Web3 development strives to bring a shift from this approach to enhance the output. The technology has immense potential to empower the education industry. It strives to open doors for student-friendly, experience-focused learning, and goal-oriented teaching.”
Web3 & Education in Ed3: Impact of this Blend on the Edu Sector
“The education system is transforming, thanks to web3. Web3 decentralised apps are building learn-to-earn, community learning platforms where users are paid for honing their talents, in contrast to web2, which concentrates on individualised, centralised learning systems.”
New Web3 Learning Platform, Proof of Learn, Offers A New Approach to Accessible, High-Quality Education Across The Globe
“This mission-driven team with a focus on accessibility and equality is taking their global experience scaling Web2 solutions with a social impact to Web3, by creating Proof of Learn, a platform with a vision to make high-tech education accessible to people all over the world - and to give employers transparent access to students’ skill sets. Proof of Learn is a learn-to-earn platform where students put their learned vocational skills into practice as they progress. What’s more, it incentivizes learning by offering students cryptocurrency and NFTs upon mastering new skills. Proof of Learn aims to increase massive open online course completion rates, which studies show hover between 5-15%, by not only incentivizing completion with learn-to-earn economic rewards but also by providing a strong network community for the students.”
What does Web3 in Education mean for the future of teaching and learning?
“When it comes to the web, educators rely on many different technologies and digital tools. Right now, these providers are making their content available in the centralized space of the current version of the web. With Web3, companies could start to provide more and different types of content.”
Tools
MetaMask: The crypto wallet for Defi, Web3 Dapps and NFTs
“Available as a browser extension and as a mobile app, MetaMask equips you with a key vault, secure login, token wallet, and token exchange—everything you need to manage your digital assets.”
Building True Web3 Education: Ledger Presents Ledger Quest: LEARN, PLAY, EARN.
“Currently, Web3 Education can be seen as time consuming, off-chain and unappealing, which is why we have decided to bridge the gap between old and new paradigms by engaging Web3 communities through gamified and incentive-driven content, leveraging blockchain technologies.”
TinyTap | NFT Project Landing page
“We’re building a decentralized independent world curriculum library created and owned by teachers and the community via Web3. This system will be comprised of communities with shared interests they want to promote through education. As our first step, TinyTap is introducing Co-publishing rights with Publisher NFTs for 6 educational courses.”
Learn more about TinyTap on the An Undeniably Good Use for Blockchain & NFTs - TinyTap - The Giant Internet School - with CEO Yogev Shelly episode of the Welcome to the Metaverse podcast.
Resources & Guides
As Ed3 is a quickly changing field and topic, keeping up with it can be difficult. Here are some resources to help you stay up to date and walk you through a variety of processes.
Ed3 - Scaling education with web3
“Ed3 explores the future of learning. Enjoy our podcasts and essays.”
Ed3 Weekly by Dagan.eth | Substack
“Weekly newsletter featuring curated resources on web3 for educators and those interested in education.”
Transition to web3: a guide for non-technical roles
“It can be daunting to make a career shift to web3, especially for those who don’t code. This guide aims to help make a career pivot into web3 less ominous.”
Web3 Learning at My Middle School – Dagan.Blog
“How an NFT club provided an opportunity for middle schoolers to explore web3.”
Research Solutions
AthenaDAO: A decentralized collective supporting women’s health
“AthenaDAO is a decentralized community of researchers, funders, and advocates working to advance women’s health research, education, and funding.”
Molecule: We’re democratizing biopharma research and development
“Molecule is a decentralized biotech protocol, building a web3 marketplace for research-related IP. Our platform and scalable framework for biotech DAOs connects academics and biotech companies with quick and easy funding, while enabling patient, researcher, and investor communities to directly govern and own research-related IP.”
VitaDAO: We’re tackling aging with the power of a global community
“VitaDAO is a community-owned collective dedicated to funding and advancing longevity science that can improve people’s lives. With your support we can turn the tide on age related disease.”
ResearchHub | Open Science Community: A tool for the open publication and discussion of scientific research
“Traditionally, academic publishing has been under the jurisdiction of a set of oligopoly publishers (i.e. Springer, Elsevier, Wiley etc). Each of these large publishers can have thousands of journals, each covering various topics of science and academia. Each journal is ranked by the north star metric of ‘Impact Factor.’ The impact factor is a number that boils down to how many citations come out of the publications within that journal.
“ResearchHub has created Hubs in lieu of the thousands of journals, and allows for a streamlined and open publishing of scientific or academia content directly into these hubs. This removes the gatekeeping process of traditional publishing and allows information dissemination to be expedited and then peer reviewed post-publication.”
References
Bucea-Manea-Țoniş, R., Martins, O. M. D., Bucea-Manea-Țoniş, R., Gheorghiță, C., Kuleto, V., Ilić, M. P., & Simion, V.-E. (2021). Blockchain Technology Enhances Sustainable Higher Education. Sustainability, 13(22), 12347. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su132212347
Chivu, R.-G. (Popa), Popa, I.-C., Orzan, M.-C., Marinescu, C., Florescu, M. S., & Orzan, A.-O. (2022). The Role of Blockchain Technologies in the Sustainable Development of Students’ Learning Process. Sustainability, 14(3), 1406. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su14031406
Fedorova, E. P., & Skobleva, E. I. (2020). Application of Blockchain Technology in Higher Education. European Journal of Contemporary Education, 9(3), 552–571. https://eric.ed.gov/?i d=EJ1272331
Lizcano, D., Lara, J. A., White, B., & Aljawarneh, S. (2020). Blockchain-based approach to create a model of trust in open and ubiquitous higher education. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 32(1), 109–134. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-019-09209-y
Citation
@online{straight2023,
author = {Straight, Ryan},
title = {The {Ed3} {Toolkit}},
date = {2023-04-04},
url = {https://mavrxlab.org/news/2023-04-04-ed3-toolkit},
langid = {en}
}