Will the future of learning take place on the blockchain? The edtech industry has made great strides in recent years, but there is still a long road ahead.
Thankfully, technologies like blockchain are helping speed up the process. Ledger tech, along with AI, smartphones and tablets, are rapidly replacing bulky desktop computers and antiquated textbooks as the preferred method of teaching — giving the education industry a much-needed upgrade.
How Is Blockchain in Education Used?
Blockchain’s immutable ledger technology creates a chronological list of events that have transpired in real time. These academic records are useful for verifying transcripts, diplomas and test scores. In addition, teachers, university administrators and students can use smart contracts to agree on assignment due dates and even deploy student loan payments.
Plus, it may not be long before academic institutions are able to incentivize students to pay student loans on time and teachers to motivate students by awarding cryptocurrency to those who perform highly or complete a certain major. The gamification aspect of education created by tokenization has been tremendously beneficial.
Although it’s still at an early stage, blockchain has proven to be helpful for increasing transparency, improving accountability and incentivizing student engagement and learning. As a result, educators are relying on the technology to give education a long-awaited overhaul.
Below are eight examples of how blockchain is being implemented in education.
8 Blockchain in Education Examples
Blockchain in Education Examples
- Blockchain for Crypto Incentives: Using ledger technology to incentivize academic engagement.
- Blockchain for Academic Credentials: Leveraging immutable ledgers to store academic records and data.
- Blockchain for Personalized Learning: Employing blockchain to support students with unique education backgrounds and needs.
- Blockchain for Learning Development: Applying blockchain’s ledger tools to foster academic rigor and collaboration.
Blockchain for Crypto Incentives
1. BitDegree
Founded: 2017
Location: Fully Remote
How it uses blockchain for education: BitDegree combines blockchain ledgers and tokenization on its tech-focused online education platform. The company offers both free and paid online courses on topics like cryptocurrencies, blockchain implementation and gamified coding to help more people learn about DLT and eventually enter a blockchain-oriented career. The platform also incentivizes learning by offering tokenized scholarships for successful course completion or certain achievements.
Blockchain for Academic Credentials
2. Blockcerts
Founded: 2016
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
How it uses blockchain for education: Learning Machine (now a part of Hyland) teamed up with the MIT Media Lab to create Blockcerts, an open standard platform for creating, issuing and verifying blockchain-backed certificates. By creating records like academic transcripts and credentials on a blockchain, the company can review the credibility of documents and discover falsified information. Academic achievements — grades, transcripts and even diplomas — can also be stored on a Blockcerts blockchain for immutable insight into past academic history.
3. APPII
Founded: 2016
Location: Fully Remote
How it uses blockchain for education: APPII combines blockchain, smart contracts and machine learning to verify the academic credentials of prospective students and professors. Users create a profile and fill out their academic CV, including education history and transcripts. APPII then uses blockchain to verify a user’s background and lock their information into its blockchain.
4. Parchment
Founded: 2003
Location: Scottsdale, Arizona
How it uses blockchain for education: Parchment offers digital credential services to students, academic institutions and employers. K-12 educators use the company’s blockchain to upload any important developmental progress while higher education institutions use the platform to review academic merit, process applications and produce immutable diplomas. Additionally, students have full-time access to all educational information and can easily share academic achievements with future employers.
Blockchain for Personalized learning
5. Sony Global Education
Founded: 2015
Location: Fully Remote
How it uses blockchain for education: Sony Global Education, in partnership with IBM, developed a blockchain platform that enables multiple institutions to add individual academic achievements and other pertinent student information on a ledger in order to maintain irrefutable records on students who have transferred or furthered their education. The blockchain helps educational institutions keep a clear digital transcript, ledger of records and payments for each student.
6. Disciplina
Founded: 2016
Location: Fully Remote
How it uses blockchain for education: The Disciplina platform uses blockchain to maintain a unified register of academic achievement and qualifications for universities. The company’s decentralized algorithm automatically assigns a score to someone based on their achievements and qualifications. Universities can use those scores to determine individualized learning plans based on what the student has or hasn’t learned.
Blockchain for Learning Development
7. ODEM
Founded: 2017
Location: Fully Remote
How it uses blockchain for education: ODEM is a decentralized marketplace for educational products and services that connects educators, students and professionals to relevant courses and resources with blockchain technology. Using smart contracts, professors and students agree on specific courses that will help further students’ education and bolster their professional backgrounds. The ODEM ledger then recognizes each course a student has taken and a professor has taught, which boosts the reputations of both on ODEM’s platform.
8. Blockchain Education Network
Founded: 2014
Location: Fully Remote
How it uses blockchain for education: The Blockchain Education Network (BEN) is a cohort of students and alumni all over the world focused on blockchain and cryptocurrency initiatives. Started by students at MIT and the University of Michigan, BEN connects over 6,000 members who share blockchain ideas, build prototypes and launch creations.