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Why Do College Students and Professionals Like Learning with Projectsby@ledumjg
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Why Do College Students and Professionals Like Learning with Projects

by Dr. Michael J. GarbadeMarch 15th, 2018
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When it comes to learning new information, traditional schooling has focused on providing students with theoretical knowledge and then testing how much they can remember with written or multiple choice exams. While this is a good way to learn in some subjects, when it comes to certain future technologies, this method of schooling is ineffective on its own. Also, once students have passed the college phase and are entering into industry, or they have some entry-level experience and are ready to move onto the next stage, theoretical learning doesn’t provide what is required.

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When it comes to learning new information, traditional schooling has focused on providing students with theoretical knowledge and then testing how much they can remember with written or multiple choice exams. While this is a good way to learn in some subjects, when it comes to certain future technologies, this method of schooling is ineffective on its own. Also, once students have passed the college phase and are entering into industry, or they have some entry-level experience and are ready to move onto the next stage, theoretical learning doesn’t provide what is required.

For topics such as artificial intelligence, data science augmented and virtual reality, it is important for persons to practice with real projects, as it helps them to understand the process much better. For those in industry, practicing with real projects by watching other people do things also helps them to become better as they can immediately apply what they’ve learned at work.

Project Learning

Project learning falls under the educational shift known as the decentralization of learning. Learning has shifted from formal education at universities to informal learning, which is geared towards career growth, and not simply gaining knowledge. For nascent high in-demand professions in the fields of programming, game development, design, virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies, informal learning is the only way for students to acquire the necessary skills. This concept of project learning is one that is used by Education Ecosystem(LiveEdu). It allows persons to learn by exchanging ideas with other learners and project creators around the world.

Learning certain subjects through theory tends to be very ineffective. When it comes to topics such as data science or cybersecurity, the concepts are changing constantly. This means, by the time you’ve memorized certain concepts they are about to become obsolete. Instead, through project learning you can gain practical knowledge which is immediately applicable. As changes occur in the industry it becomes easier to adapt to them as the practical concepts are already clear.

Blockchain For Incentives

While project learning can provide more benefits than theoretical learning alone, when it comes to learning online, there are still some challenges. This is one reason why the Education Ecosystem is developing the YouTube for professional development and incorporating the blockchain and Education tokens into the platform. The Education token (LEDU) is used for all financial transactions in the internal ecosystem of the platform. The members of this internal ecosystem include: project creators, learners, API developers and moderators. For the learners, the education token incentivizes them as they receive tokens for watching projects and interacting with others in the ecosystem. Project creators receive tokens for creating high quality projects which learners want to watch. API developers receive tokens for developing apps and bots on top of the platform API. Moderators that find bugs in the system receive tokens as well. Hence, every member of the ecosystem benefits from their contributions to the ecosystem as well as the contributions of others.

For college students and professionals in industry, this type of incentive is perfect. On the one hand, learning from projects rather than theory provides a greater benefit to them as they can learn key concepts which are beyond the beginner level and in important future technology topics. On the other hand, they can receive a reward for their learning by earning Education tokens, which they can then trade on exchanges if they desire.

Learning with projects is not only more beneficial for college students and professionals that are tired of reading textbooks, it also a lot more fun. When they learn with projects they can interact with others and really develop the skills which will be of benefit to them in industry.

If you wish to learn more about the benefits of project learning and incorporating the blockchain then feel free to check out the Education Ecosystem blog for more reading material and updates on the platform.