How Blockchain Technology is Bringing Novel Use Cases to the Educational Sector
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Blockchain technology has taken center stage in transforming various industries worldwide, from decentralizing finance and manufacturing to data authentication in logistics and asset capitalization. As a trillion-dollar market, the technology is expected to revolutionize even more industries, education being one of these key industries.
Not to get ahead of ourselves, blockchain adoption in education is still in its infancy, as only 2% of higher education institutions had adopted the technology as of 2019. The poll conducted by research firm Gartner predicted another 18% of educational institutions will adopt the technology by 2021.
While the role of blockchain in education cannot be underestimated, there is a huge widening gap in how the technology is being applied across higher and lower levels of education. Luckily, several developers are working to bridge this gap, bringing blockchain to primary/secondary levels of education.
The disproportionate growth of blockchain in education
The global COVID-19 pandemic immensely helped the emergence of blockchain in education, as schools shut down and lockdown measures were implemented in most countries worldwide. Parents, teachers, and students worldwide sought alternatives to ensure continuous learning even when schools closed. Blockchain technology emerged as a viable option.
According to The Daily Journal, the global blockchain in the education market stood at $118.73 million in 2021, at the peak of the pandemic, and is expected to grow to $1.056 billion by the end of 2027, representing a CAGR of 43.94 during the forecast period.
Despite the explosive forecasted growth, blockchain in education is still heavily focused on higher institutions of learning, despite the technology offering wide use cases across all levels of education. According to data from Zipdo, a crypto research firm, 91.3% of educational startups implementing blockchain technology are concentrated in higher education. This revelation reads more than just a story, it captures the disproportionate wave of growth of blockchain in education and where the digital disruption is most felt.
Universities and tertiary levels of education benefit significantly from blockchain’s immutable ledger technology, whereby universities can record academic records and verify transcripts, diplomas, and test scores. Additionally, teachers, university administrators, and students can use smart contracts to agree on assignment due dates and even deploy student loan payments.
Amidst the burgeoning growth of blockchain in higher education institutions, one platform – TinyTap – aims to change this by bringing blockchain to the broader education space. Crucially, the platform allows teachers, parents, and content creators to develop educative games for students, post them on the marketplace, and earn from their content, launching a novel utility for blockchain in education.
Content Creation: A Novel Role For Blockchain in Education
As alluded to, blockchain developers have widely focused on institutions of higher learning, leaving lower levels starving for the technology. Away from the authentication and verification of degrees and diplomas, new blockchain-based platforms bring novel use cases to the industry – majorly promoting the creation of educational content and games for kids.
TinyTap is a Web 2 app aiming to transition to Web 3 in the future, allowing creators to create educational games for kids, teachers can collaborate on projects worldwide, and via NFTs, they can sell their content and collect royalties – providing a new earning channel for teachers worldwide.
The protocol aims to revolutionize the education sector by creating new paths for learners to gain knowledge and teachers to earn. The platform allows teachers and educators to take their teaching passions and create gamified courses, which can be sold in this open marketplace.
TinyTap is a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, a crypto VC firm, and doubles as a launch partner for Open Campus, a Web 3 community-led protocol for educators, content creators, parents, and students. In May, Open Campus, in conjunction with TinyTap, Animoca Brands and other companies, launched a Global Educators Fund, giving $10 million to help advance the growth of blockchain in education, specifically content creation.
The collaboration with Open Campus will see the platform introduce “Publisher NFTs”, non-fungible tokens that give holders rights to co-publish content created by teachers and parents on TinyTap. This enables the co-publishers to support content creators on the platform, giving teachers a new earning channel and the co-publishers rights to share a portion of the generated revenue with the creator, which is collected from a subscription model.
Additionally, teachers can earn royalties whenever their NFT-based content is resold, giving them full ownership of their content.
Blockchain in Education For All
In the rapidly evolving blockchain sphere, the intersection of this technology and education signifies not only progress but also vast possibilities. Building new utilities for blockchain in education highlights the incremental trust, development, and investment in blockchain’s potential to revolutionize not only data management, authenticating and verifying educational records, and reducing fraud, but also introduce the novel use case of blockchain in content creation.
Blockchain technology adds more to education, apart from the student-focused developments in higher education institutions. It brings digitization to lower levels of education, adding a teacher-focused component to content creation in education. The growth of platforms such as TinyTap, not only pushes for the expansion of blockchain technology in education but sets a new standard. Predictably, blockchain in education will become more prominent in the future, with lower levels of educational institutions gravitating towards this technology to streamline content creation and foster transparent, secure earning models for all in the education industry.
