Blockchain technology has applications in every aspect of life and the education sector will see its strong influence in the coming years. When blockchain technology is used in education, you can expect a smooth, secure, and tamper-proof space for information exchange. Data management and interpersonal communication are the major areas of education where Blockchain technology will help the stakeholders.
How Will Blockchain Technology Impact Education?
There are several ways through which blockchain technology can impact education. Smart contracts can be used for courses and assignments. They can automatically manage the course content and student interaction based on pre-set programming. Delivery of course materials, such as readings, videos, and quizzes, and tracking student progress and completion of assignments are made easy with the application of smart contracts. This will reduce the administrative hassles for education providers.
The use of blockchain technology in education is also beneficial for student record-keeping. This ensures that students’ certificates and records are managed adequately. Universities and educational institutions can store their student records in the form of blocks. These records will be immutable, secure, and verifiable.
If blockchain technology is used in education, scholarships and other rewards can be given using cryptocurrencies. In-game currencies would be an interesting reward for students. A crypto wallet can securely store and manage these digital rewards for easy access and use. This form of reward can be integrated into the educational institution’s learning management system, and task competition and prize distribution can be streamlined automatically.
Another use of this technology is the creation of digital badges and credentials that are easily verifiable. These digital badges and credentials can be awarded to the students as per their accomplishment of learning objectives. This will ensure an engaging, interactive learning environment for the students.
The use of this technology in education is useful for ensuring the authenticity of the certificates. Transcripts, degrees, and certifications can be verified for their authenticity. This will prevent incidents where students take admissions by submitting fake certificates. Transfer of certificates when a student moves from one institute to another is easy and less time-consuming with digital certificates. Such certificates will be immutable and non-forgeable.
All these uses of blockchain networks in the education sector come at a reduced cost.
Challenges Of Using Blockchain Technology In Education
Even though blockchain technology has many use cases in education, certain obstacles are hindering its widespread adoption. Scalability is the major concern of the educational sector when adopting blockchain technology. With educational institutions handling huge amounts of data every day, it may become difficult for them to make swift transfers.
The peer-to-peer verification method this technology uses will increase the time consumed manifold. Additionally, integrating smart contracts for automating administrative processes may further strain system performance if scalability issues are not addressed.
Many of the people working in the educational sector are unaware of the benefits of using blockchain technology and therefore, hesitate to adopt blockchain technology to education. Another major concern that is hindering the adoption of blockchain technology in education is its cost. The cost of setting up the infrastructure needed to adopt blockchain technology is high.
The current infrastructure used will have to be restructured to accommodate the blockchain network, which will also add to the cost. Most of the universities or other educational institutions may not have the financial capacity to accommodate such innovative technologies.
Another major concern is the security issues posed by the adoption of blockchain network. There is a possibility of data stored using blockchain
Moreover, cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, which adds to the risk. This high volatility may not be suitable for using cryptocurrencies in the field of education technology. Additional security measures to aid data storage using cryptocurrencies should be developed to improve security measures.
The Bottom Line
The emerging blockchain technology and its varied use cases will surely revolutionize the education sector. However, apprehension and doubts regarding its implementation are making many educational institutions hesitate to adopt it. The higher infrastructure cost of implementation is another factor that hinders its widespread adoption.
If these apprehensions are resolved and blockchain network is adopted in the education sector, it will be a huge revolution. It will automate course advancement and learning paths for learners by employing smart contracts built on blocks, giving them ultimate control over the whole process of education.
