Many face to face classrooms use reward systems and acknowledge progress, which can be hard to attribute to learners when online. Digital applications like Edmodo are frequently used in schools by teachers to encourage specific behaviours such as peer interaction or completing homework (Cheng, Watson, & Newby, 2018, pp. 191, 192; Gibson, Ostashewski, Flintoff, Grant, & Knight, 2015, p. 405). Similarly, like many teachers create a classroom currency, block-chain can use a form of currency to place a value on an achievement which can be utilised to ‘buy’ a specific item or create an exchange for something the learner may need in their learning progress (Chen, Xu, Lu, & Chen, 2018, pp. 2, 6). As learning is becoming more online, the ability for rewards systems to be digitalised is useful, but to use these tools only for this would have little benefit to learning.

The greater benefit of digital badges is they can also support pedagogy. For example, digital badges can be awarded to learners for holding specific skills and knowledge content (Cheng, Watson, & Newby, 2018, p. 191; Gibson, Ostashewski, Flintoff, Grant, & Knight, 2015, pp. 406, 408), which can be help identify them by other learners when trying to form collaborative groups in learning settings such as communities of practice, project-based learning or games based learning (Gibson, Ostashewski, Flintoff, Grant, & Knight, 2015, pp. 407, 408). In addition, it can be used as an effective feedback tool (Cheng, Watson, & Newby, 2018, p. 193) similar to a rubric, identify what students can achieve, and the level they can achieve it, and what they still need to do (Cheng, Watson, & Newby, 2018, pp. 191, 192, 193; Gibson, Ostashewski, Flintoff, Grant, & Knight, 2015, p. 407).

Blockchain security both a positive and a risk. Whilst block-chain is promoted as being highly secure do to its structure and ability to identify authorship and access (Chen, Xu, Lu, & Chen, 2018, pp. 3, 4, 5, 9; Gong, Liu, & Jing, 2018, pp. 2393-2394; Ma & Fang, 2020, pp. 22-23, 24), its openness to be access by anyone as well as its purpose for storing all data in one collection makes it an ideal target for gleaning information (Ma & Fang, 2020, p. 26). The other issue about its ability to collate and exchange data is this method is less personal (Chen, Xu, Lu, & Chen, 2018, p. 8; Ma & Fang, 2020, pp. 25, 27). Being a crypto-currency tool (Chen, Xu, Lu, & Chen, 2018, p. 1; Gong, Liu, & Jing, 2018, p. 2391), using it for education establishes a perspective that knowledge is a currency, reinforcing the concept that learning is for commercial value, rather than being learner centric.

Many other alternatives to bitcoin that offer similar benefits but are more personable. Block-chain still requires information to be stored on a server (Chen, Xu, Lu, & Chen, 2018, p. 4; Ma & Fang, 2020, p. 24), so for the learner, it makes little difference to using a cloud-based system. Platforms like Google allow for the learner to utilise the same features as Blockchain, but with additional features that allow for synchronous and asynchronous communication (Google, n.d.), making learning a lot more personal and collaborative (therefore more aligned with contemporary pedagogy).

Arguably, block-chain may be innovative and offer a range of digital features, but in terms of learning design has little to endorse it that cannot be offered elsewhere with more features. Digital badges however, whilst many may view as having little to offer other than an extrinsic reward system, with proper utilisation can support a range of effective pedagogical practices for online learning.

References

Chen, G., Xu, B., Lu, M., & Chen, N.-S. (2018). Exploring blockchain and its potential applications for education. Smart Learning Environments, 5(1), 1-10. doi:10.1186/s40561-017-0050-x

Cheng, Z., Watson, S. L., & Newby, T. J. (2018). Goal Setting and Open Digital Badges in Higher Education. TechTrends, 62(2), 190 – 196. doi:10.1007/s11528-018-0249-x

Gibson, D., Ostashewski, N., Flintoff, K., Grant, S., & Knight, E. (2015). Digital Badges in Education. Education and InformationTechnologies, 20(2), 403 – 410. doi:10.1007/s10639-013-9291-7

Gong, X., Liu, X., & Jing, S. (2018). Parallel-Education-Blockchain Driven Smart Education: Challenges and Issues. 2018 Chinese Automation Congress (CAC), (pp. 2390 – 2395). doi:10.1109/CAC.2018.8623198

Google. (n.d.). Working together with G Suite. Retrieved from G Suite: https://gsuite.google.com/

Ma, Y., & Fang, Y. (2020). Current Status, Issues, and Challenges of Blockchain Applications in Education. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 15(12), 20 – 31. doi:10.3991/ijet.v15i12.13797