For the team behind steemiteducation, Hive means two things: a second chance... and the need for a name change (our old name just doesn't seem to fit the new Hive vibe).
When we began our education project, we had a simple goal
Yep that's it. Nothing too complicated. No big deal.
We simply believed that blockchain technology would allow us to level the playing field and bring education to anyone who wanted it. We figured we could not go wrong by following one of the greatest teachers of all time, Confucius, who said:
We took this as meaning that if a student shows even the tiniest interest in learning, they deserve to learn. Sadly, this is not possible for far too many people around the world. Being interested is not enough. Being eager is not enough. Being willing to sacrifice is not enough. Being prepared to scratch, claw, and fight to get the most effective source of power is not enough.
Some people simply do not have access to teachers or resources to allow them to empower themselves. This is especially true of people in developing nations. They may not have access to schools, teachers, or books. But perhaps they have access to a smart phone... and a blockchain. And that could be... enough.
If educators shared their expertise on a blockchain, anyone in the world could access their valuable lessons. But that is asking quite a bit from educators who are already spending their energy and time educating students. It is also not motivating the millions of experts who do not feel like they can teach others... yet. Our project thought it could help to bridge this gap. We hoped to be able to encourage and reward educators and experts for sharing their knowledge with the world. But this wasn't even the most significant contribution we hoped to make. We imagined what it would be like if a student could earn rewards for learning. We hoped to make empowering oneself a way to also help feed oneself.
We hoped.
Perhaps we are being too harsh on ourselves. After all, during the nearly 3 years steemiteducation has existed, it has rewarded over 19,000 education related posts by more than 1300 unique content creators. But we were hoping for a far greater impact. We had hoped that if, just for example, a world wide pandemic caused e-learing to be the main delivery model of education, people would be able to turn to the blockchain. We failed.
We now have a second chance to bring together the 60 million teachers and 750 million students in the world today. We have a second chance to double or triple that number of students (after all, learning should not end with childhood). We have a second chance of turning our hopes into realities by
What does Hive mean to us?
Oh and about that name change…
steemiteducation has been reborn as
