How Blockchain could disrupt the education industry

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Blockchain is undisputedly an ingenious invention. It’s a technology that began as underpinning for virtual currencies but it is quickly becoming obvious that blockchain is more than just bitcoin.

The encrypted ledger technology that powers bitcoin is primed to reshape the future of many industries. Be it healthcare, finance, media, or the government, the blockchain technology will bring about a revolutionary change across many industries.

The technology is sure to disrupt every industry, including education. There is no denying the fact that the education system is far from where it needs to be. Using this technology, a lot of improvements can be made in the education sector.

The edtech sector is huge. It is estimated that it will reach $93.76 billion by 2020. Technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality are already making their way into the education sector. It’s only a matter of time before the blockchain technology becomes mainstream too.

Let’s see how this disruptive technology can revolutionize the education sector.

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Online competency-based education is going to revolutionize the workforce, not MOOCs

competency based ed

We already know that recruiting is an imprecise activity, and degrees don’t communicate much about a candidate’s potential and fit, but now data is confirming this. Employers need to know what a student knows and can do.

 

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Harvard and MIT make a strong case for MOOCs

moocs

MOOCs can make a meaningful difference even if we don’t yet know what that will look like.

Harvard and MIT have made a compelling case for the potential benefits of massively open online courses, or MOOCs despite low completion rates. They released a draft of a working paper that is rich on data about their respective HarvardX and MITx courses and focuses on what has always been a faulty focal point of many MOOC criticisms. In a free, online environment, completion rates are vastly overrated.

 

 

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Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun: MOOC’s not effective for undergraduate education

Sebastian Thrun

Sebastian Thrun, founder of Udacity, captivated the world with visions of self-driving cars and Google Glass and has signed up 16 million students for online classes. So why is he pivoting away from MOOC’s? Thrun says, “We don’t educate people as others wished, or as I wished.”

 

 

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Is the traditional university lecture dead?

The aim of open online massive courses is to provide instruction similar to what students can get in a traditional college atmosphere, only more cheaply and conveniently.

Why would you pay thousands of dollars to sit in a university lecture hall as a professor drones away in front of bored students when you could instead take some of the world’s greatest courses online? For free?

 

 

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Are universities terrified of MOOCs?

The internet has made it possible for people to educate themselves, independently or in groups large and small, on an unprecedented scale.

There hasn’t been much change in universities since the Middle Ages. Universities have the campus with its lecture halls, dormitories, libraries, and laboratories surrounded by leafy quadrangles. They have added giant sports complexes, gyms and swimming pools, and gourmet restaurants, but the basic layout is the same. And the production process hasn’t changed since around 1200. Professors give lectures, students read books and take notes, there are examinations and grades, along with the occasional tutoring session, and a great deal of hanky panky. The professors wear tweed jackets instead of gowns, and the students wear – well, just about anything, including pajamas – but otherwise the university remains one of society’s most conservative institutions.

 

 

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12 tech trends that will alter higher education

Technology trends will transform higher education.

Higher education is facing an onslaught of disruptive forces right now. Technologies such as MOOCs and mobile devices are disrupting institutional structures from the classroom and across entire campuses. As tech transforms these learning environments, universities must decide whether to resist the change or get out in front of it. To choose the latter option, however, we need to envision what universities of the future will look like—if they exist at all.

 

 

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Preparing Our Minds for Thoughts Unthinkable: The Future of Colleges and Universities

Futurist Thomas Frey: If you haven’t noticed, there’s a massive battle brewing in academia. No it’s not just a battle between MOOCs and traditional education. What’s at stake is nothing short of the future of humanity.

 

 

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MOOC mania – more action in 1 year than the last 1,000 years

MOOCs are a powerful force for good.

Where did all of the MOOC mania come from? It came faster than Facebook and it’s here to stay. In just a year MOOCs emerged from a unique mix of entrepreneurial spirit, a few leading US Universities, supported by not-for-profits and venture capital. It’s an ecosystem that can take an idea and support it through to a sustainable business. That’s impressive.

 

 

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A view into the digital world of MOOCs

MOOCs – massive open online courses

One of the world’s oldest, largest, and best business schools is the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  They have 11 academic departments, 20 research centers, 230 standing faculty, and an endowment nearing $1 billion. With all those resource, it has produced 92,000 living alumni.

 

 

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California universities are aggressively expanding online courses

The online education movement is transforming physical colleges at a fast pace.

The California State University system is the largest university system in America and they are aggressively expanding its experimental foray into Massive Online Open Learning (MOOCs), based on an unusually promising pilot course.  They will offer a special “flipped” version of an electrical engineering course at 11 more universities, where students watch online lectures from Harvard and MIT at home, while class time is devoted to hands-on problem solving. A San Jose State University pilot found that the flipped class increased pass rates a whopping 46%, which university President Mohammad Qayoumi believes is enough to move full-steam ahead.

 

 

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72% of MOOC professors don’t think their students deserve college credit

The actual number of professors who discount the quality of MOOCs is probably much higher than 72%.

Seventy-two percent of professors who have taught Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) don’t believe that students should get official college credit, even if they did well in the class. More importantly, these are the professors who voluntarily took time to teach online courses, which means the actual number of professors who discount the quality of MOOCs is probably much higher. The survey reveals the Grand Canyon-size gap between the higher-education establishment and the coalition of tech companies and lawmakers that are mandating college credit for online courses.

 

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