Online Education and the Future of Blockchain Technology

In recent years, the edtech industry has made a lot of progress, but there is still a long way to go. 

Technology like blockchain is helping to speed up the process, which is good. 

AI, smartphones, and tablets, along with ledger technology, are quickly taking the place of bulky desktop computers and old textbooks as the preferred way to teach, giving the education industry a much-needed update.

Blockchain helps education by making things more clear, making people more accountable through smart contracts, and giving people incentives to learn.

For example, Blockchain’s immutable ledger technology makes a list of things that have happened in real-time, in order of when they happened. 

This is a good way to check the accuracy of transcripts, diplomas, and test scores. 

Smart contracts can also be used by teachers, university administrators, and students to agree on when assignments are due and even to pay back student loans.

Also, it might not be long before schools can offer incentives for students to pay their student loans on time and teachers can encourage students by giving cryptocurrency to those who do well in class or finish a certain major. Through tokenization, education has become more like a game, which has been very helpful.

Even though blockchain in edtech is still in its early stages, it has already been called “the right technology” to fix a system that has always been seen as old. 

Blockchain was brought into education to improve security, ensure transparency, and make it easier to check records and get to them. Since the first time they met, they’ve been a great match.

Blockchain can be used for much more than just bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. 

With its ability to make things more open and fair while also saving businesses time and money, blockchain technology is affecting many areas, from how contracts are enforced to how the government works.

5 Ways Blockchain Technology Has Made Online Education Better

1. More protection for intellectual property

The use of blockchain has made the security of important research breakthroughs and findings even better.

The hard work that goes into research and the valuable results have always been vulnerable to theft and misuse.

With blockchain, researchers would be able to keep track of how their research is used and find piracy quickly.

Making sure their work is safe would encourage more research that will help people.

 

2. Enhanced security

Because of the heavy reliance placed on databases accessible via the internet, it is much more likely that records relating to both students and employees may be stolen or altered. Hackers might try to steal data from staff members for use in illegal activities, or they might try to change student records in order to improve grades or credentials.

The chain-of-blocks technique, also known as the blockchain, is used, which considerably increases the level of security. Taking precautions to prevent any security breaches on the educational platform and maintaining the highest level of privacy for exemplary records.

 

3. Improvement in teaching

Interoperability is the ability of different systems to send and receive data in a safe and easy way. 

This is a big improvement for online education because it makes it easier to find out about a student or staff member.

For example, if a teacher wants to know why a student is having trouble with a certain subject, he or she might ask the student. 

They can easily get to a portal that shows the student’s full progress, including class attendance, test scores, and even assignments. 

Helping them figure out why the student is having trouble improves the teacher’s ability to teach.

The idea of interoperability is shown when you can use an ATM from a different bank to get cash. This is a safe and easy way for customer data from different platforms to be shared.

 

4. Credible certification

The blockchain works because each new change is codified on a new block. 

The change from A to B is shown along with the exact time it happened. 

This trait has been valued a lot because of how safe and clear it is.

When it was used in online education, it greatly sped up the process of making digital badges and certificates and making sure they were real. For instance:

 

Accredible: Accredible was started in 2013, and it is now the most popular way for online learning platforms like Google, Udacity, and Hootsuite to prove their skills. 

Credible works by representing the information given with numbers. The information is then put into a Blockchain. 

During the verification of a credential, Accredible compares the numbers it has stored to the new information about the credential to make sure there is a match.

 

Credly: This is another solution for validating certifications that use Blockchain. 

Credly was started in 2012, and its goal is to help people and businesses issue and keep track of verified achievements. 

Credly works by adding digital credentials to the blockchain. Other people on the blockchain can then easily check the credentials in real-time.

5. Cutting costs

One of the most important things that blockchain can do is reduce the number of middlemen in a process. 

Managing tuition can involve a lot of different people, like students, parents, loan companies, and the school itself. 

Using blockchain restructures this process, making it easier and cheaper. 

Since blockchain has been used in education, there are also new ways to pay for things. 

Now, there are pay-as-you-learn plans that use smart contracts on the blockchain.

 

The Future of Blockchain Education

Even though traditional schools have been around for a long time and have a good track record, people are leaving them in favor of online schools because they are cheaper and easier to get to. 

Most companies prefer traditional degrees to online degrees, so this could put students at a disadvantage.

Blockchain might have a way to close this gap. The answer is Decentralized Educational Institutions. 

If enough well-known professors got together to start a decentralized school, it would gain enough respect quickly for employers to accept its certificates. 

Creating a new way of teaching that is more cost-effective.

 

Control of credentials:

Blockchain makes it possible for credentials to be truly owned and controlled. 

Making it possible to show an employer a digital certificate and know for sure that it hasn’t been changed or forged in any way. 

This is made possible by the way the blockchain is built, which makes sure:

 

Proof of who you are that is linked to your credentials:

Show that the credentials have never been changed in the past.

Full transparency, showing everything about the lifecycle of the credentials, such as the date they were issued, how they were issued, and the history of shares.

It is clear that blockchain technology has led to important innovations that can be seen in many parts of the economy. 

Wherever it is used, it makes things more efficient. Online education is one area that has benefited from it, and in such a short time, a lot has changed in that field.

Even though it may be slow to catch on, blockchain seems to have a bright future in online education.