The EduCoin: Stanford University Freshman, Miriam Haart, co-founds a revolutionary grading system using the Ethereum blockchain with Fiona Carty

Freedom Cheteni
Sep 8, 2018 · 6 min read

The iStudy platform at dtech@Oracle uses competency grading and is powered by Haart and Carty’s Educoin cryptocurrency which students can use to buy more learning. Students who opted to publish in peer reviewed journals increased dramatically with the introduction of a mastery assessment that integrated Artificial Intelligence Research provided by the Yewno Discover platform as well as the blockchain cryptocurrency, theeducoin.

Student publication in the Algebra 2 class increased dramatically with the introduction of the Yewno Discover Research tool and implementation of the Educoin cryptocurrency which is earned by all activities that increase learning. Articles can be read in the Stanford Designership Press PreCollegiate Journals.

Fiona Carty remarks to Design Tech at Oracle Director of learning during a design thinking process she was working on to create the first ever block chain enabled learning management system. Carty along with Educoin co-founder, Stanford freshman, Miriam Haart are both Designership fellows and are breaking the status quo on what is possible in education reform. The Educoin is the first tested crypto education system on the planet that uses smart contracts in creating a dynamic block-transcript which will feed into a mastery transcript system. A search using the Yewno Ai Research shows no connections exist yet between Mastery Learning and Blockchain (See Figure 1 below).

Figure1: Yewno Knowledge map above does not show any connection between Mastery learning and blockchain. In fact, there is also no connection between Mastery Learning and Transcript. Educoin will create that connection. (map created from yewno.com)

As years have gone by, many things around us have evolved, and improved. Cars have become faster, safer, and more efficient. Space moonshots and travel have reached amazing new heights, and the idea of colonizing another planet is becoming more viable each day. Information has become more accessible to a diverse group of people around the world, and we can communicate to broader audiences more than ever before and searching for concepts has been simplified using the Yewno Ai Research tool. If everything around us has developed and evolved in such significant ways, why is it that our educational system still caters to such a small spectrum of learning styles? This is how Stanford moonshot fellow Miriam Haart and designership fellows intend to contribute in the education economy, using blockchain technology.

Yewno Discover is the world’s first Ai Research tool that searches by concepts simplifying the research process.

In order to evolve our educational system, we must take steps to expand the ways we learn, helping us cater towards all learning styles. One thing that has been implemented into many schools is an online content management system, which allows teachers to post assignments and grades online for students to check at anytime. This is a step in the right direction in accomplishing a moonshot in education and we still have a lot of untapped potential in creating competency based systems. Haart and Carty are focusing on creating blockchain enabled processes which can be licensed to schools that are moving away from the Carnegie grading system or the A-F grading system. So far, only Moonshot Accredited schools exclusively use the proprietary educoin founded by Haart and team. A search on Yewno Discover found that while many industries are implementing blockchain, education does not yet have a use case.

Yewno Discover Knowledge Graph shows the disconnect between Blockchain, Decentralized autonomous organization as well as the peer to peer in this context. The Educoin seeks to create this missing link and provide a way to assess students in a way that is consistent to the 4th industrial revolution.

Haart’s moonshot solution is a revolutionary blockchain enabled system tested on the student designed platform called iStudy, a mastery learning management system currently tested in the Designership Algebra program at Design Tech High School@ Oracle (Blessinger, Dvorkin, Howard et al.,2018). Developed by the Esther Wojcicki fellow, Artur Barbosa, the iStudy platform has integrated the artificial intelligence concept visualization research tool, Yewno Create as well as the ethereum blockchain cryptocurrency called EduCoin to incentivize learning.

Except from the Designership Algebra Course taught at Design Tech High School at Oracle where the Educoin cryptocurrency was implemented to measure attitudes and some skills. The Yewno Discover platform is integrated to the learning management system to provides a centralized platform that makes it easy to create a localized educoin market economy.

The Educoin gives students a new incentive to engage with each other and earn currency they can use to invest in more learning. Students will be able to participate in the education market economy and earn ethereum cryptocurrency through a variety of ways that enhance their learning. In iStudy, the Educoin is attached to mastery and competency badges that students can earn on reaching mastery at specific milestones using smart contracts also earn educoins. In the Designership Algebra course taught at Oracle, to make learning even more meaningful and authentic, the teacher created assessments that allowed each student to use their own educoin wallets to solve particular math problems such as the one show below.

The introduction of the Educoin to increase engagement and measure attitudes brought a lot of excitement and interest in the course. Students began to be authentically interested in topics such as compound interest and began to think about a vision for the future. The testing phase was extremely successful at Design Tech High School at Oracle.

The cryptocurrency, EduCoin thus promotes students to enjoy learning through personalized parameters the teacher and students agree on (Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration and Kindness). Miriam Haart created the blockchain enabled mastery system to ensure an enjoyable experience for both students and teachers, and promote communication between both groups while also providing a way to assess and track for mastery. All moonshot teachers at Oracle love The Educoin such that they even offered a moonshot course taught by blockchain expert Brinkley Warren in a moonshot dlab course now being rolled out globally.

“Integrating artificial intelligence like Yewno, augmenting technologies, machine learning and blockchain technology in the content creation, management and delivery system is revolutionary and a vital step in designing a classroom of the future”, Miriam Haart articulates. The integration of blockchain and Artificial intelligence is an initial attempt to create a truly student centered system for school districts like Palo Alto Unified and the dtech. The moonshots designership math course is proof that believing that students are the ones who can make the world a better place seems to be the way forward to produce authentic results. Artur Barbosa and Carty continue to integrate “The Educoin” in the Oracle moonshot program and this seems to be a vital first step towards accelerating the current educational system to be aligned to current and future needs and wants of the world.

The Yewno Discover and Create platforms have futuristic features that makes competency based learning, especially online learning, more collaborative, interactive, and personalized. They can be integrated into any learning management system which makes it easy to adopt and accessible to students globally.

When asked about what her role is in the future, Miriam says, she is working with the Silicon Valley Center for Innovation and the Mastery Transcript Consortium to develop a new kind of high school diploma which would use the Educoins to create a visual. Moonshots issues a special diploma for students who take the next level of research and design called “The Innovation Diploma” which would show colleges such as hers, at Stanford that she completed more than just the minimum required credits. Having designed her own high school experience and named a Designership Fellow while in high school, Miriam says her achievement is marked by the products students created individually and collaboratively using competencies like those in the moonshot program that the Educoin seeks to measure. The competencies that the EduCoin measures include Professional Competencies, Technical Competencies, and Character Competencies which are being included in the Moonshot Mastery transcript being designed by moonshot fellows and the Mastery Transcript Consortium.

The Moonshots Mastery Transcript is dynamic and is managed by both blockchain and Ai to give an accurate measure of student achievement.

Faculty advisors and experts assess these competencies based on observed evidence and completed projects and products in this new blockchain enabled system. As a Designership Fellow, Miriam was required to complete public service through the lens of her passion/curiosity projects assessed through her SPAR portfolio. She created independent design challenges that made a difference for her chosen moonshot community in Silicon Valley. She was evaluated on products and services she created to increase positive engagement between diverse groups and enhancing the Design Oracle community.

Like all moonshot fellows, Miriam was required to create a digital portfolio of the moonshot products and services she developed to make a difference for her chosen community. We are proud that as a freshman at Stanford, Miriam continues to make a lasting impact in the world and the EduCoin is a game change in how we measure creativity, trust, respect, independence, collaboration, kindness, leadership and integrity.

Moonshots in Education

Moonshots in Education Blog on How to Raise Successful People.

Freedom Cheteni

Written by

President and CEO, InventXR LLC, Palo Alto, CA

Moonshots in Education

Moonshots in Education Blog on How to Raise Successful People.

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