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.