Idea: Courses

[Jet Cash]

I've installed ILIAS on a domain, and I'm exploring that at the moment. I'll throw it open to you guys when I understand it a bit more. It looks a lot more complex than I though. and it seems to be able to create a complete University with courses, tutor groups and projects.

This is the official demo site.

https://www.demo.ilias.de/ilias.php?baseClass=ilrepositorygui&reloadpublic=1&cmd=frameset&ref_id=1

[suchmoon]

Deep down I do have the feeling though that those most interested in the online courses, if tied to the Bitcointalk Forum, would be a largely a subset of the merited users. I believe the strategical goal is greater than that nevertheless…

Perhaps theymos could elaborate a bit on who he thinks the target audience would be. It should be wider than that. Maybe it could attract new forum users who are not bounty hunters.

[Jet Cash]

Is it worth starting a thread about courses on the beginners board to see what reaction it gets.

[cool_93]

It's an outstanding idea really. It can help to people who came here for "wrong" reasons, but are interested in educating themselves and developing. I would love to participate personally.
I also believe that ideally it should be made in some form of contest, so after some time you have to "unlock" next level. That will help to eliminate those who aren't really interested in studying.

[DdmrDdmr]

Is it worth starting a thread about courses on the beginners board to see what reaction it gets.

Setting this all this in motion is no easy feat, so perhaps additional inputs could be obtained through sampling the idea in a couple of threads as you suggest. It would need to be rather guided to avoid a spamfest of jibberish and turn it into something useful.

Also some sort of proof of concept at some preliminary stage could be approached by means of a pilot test. That is, before deploying a full project and all that it entails, start with one course a kind (less ambitious than a full deployed platform) and see how people react to it, as a means to calibrate the target audience’s reaction. I figure that there are multiple, and that the idea from theymo’s opening statement is to be as broad as possible, but the ties to rewards (merit, badges) would need to be managed with care so as not to focus just on some specific profiles as a result, in the line of what @suchmoon indicates.

[Jet Cash]

As I mentioned earlier, I've installed an educational package on a domain as an experiment.

This is not intended to be a permanent project, but just an initial experiment. I'll probably take the site down in a few months. I'm in KFC at the moment, and it'a a bit hot here. I'll go to McD tomorrow ( their air con is better), and I'll do a bit of formatting, and you guys can comment. I'll just add a couple of the threads from Fit to Talk as examples.

[Piggy]

It could be working if there are enought people who can contribute creating good and interesting content for the courses. In particular i like this, i had similar essays in the university structured like that as well:

Implementing Bitcoin
 - A long & advanced course on implementing a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency largely from scratch in Python or another easy language. (Some of my best courses in university had this model, where you're provided a bunch of library code and then you glue it together by writing a few hundred lines for each assignment, at the end of the course getting some sort of complete thing.)

On github there seems to be quite a few projects coming up looking for "learning platform", without even considering the commercial one. So there is no shortage of ready solutions.

One of the main question is what kind of integration with the forum is going to be required, if one of the goal is to keep some sort of continuity. If it need to be completely integrated, is probably better to add this whole dimension to the new forum peraphs?

[BanishedDemon]

I don't have any concrete plans for this at all, but I've been thinking recently that the Bitcoin community desperately needs some high-quality, unbiased online courses, and perhaps bitcointalk.org would be a good place to host such a thing. This is just a brainstorming thread.

Example courses that come to mind:

Introductory cryptocurrency investing
 - The main focus would be not getting scammed and not losing all of your money.
 - It would be very careful not to endorse any particular sites, investments, or trading methods.
 - Overall extremely conservative, to balance out all of the pump around here.
 - It might be similar to the sort of material on investor.gov, but less authoritarian (eg. no "only trust SEC-approved things") and with more cryptocurrency focus.
 Using English naturally online
 - Tips targeted at non-native English speakers for acting naturally online.
Being a constructive bitcointalk.org member
Making money online
 - SANE tips for making money, especially for people in less-developed countries. No unwise things like gambling or high-risk investing, and no non-constructive things like spamming the forum with garbage.
Basic cryptocurrency concepts
Accepting Bitcoin payments
Implementing Bitcoin
 - A long & advanced course on implementing a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency largely from scratch in Python or another easy language. (Some of my best courses in university had this model, where you're provided a bunch of library code and then you glue it together by writing a few hundred lines for each assignment, at the end of the course getting some sort of complete thing.)
 

Some different/modified software would be needed. The existing threads structure is not at all suitable. Neither are wiki pages, since they're too easily messed-with. Maybe some suitable online-course software already exists. It'd be cool if the courses were internally gamified a bit, maybe with "achievements" and stuff. And it could be integrated with the main forum, eg. giving you badges on your profile if you completed a course.

A real challenge, which I'm not exactly sure how to solve, would be to keep them up-to-date, accurate, and unbiased. 99.9% of introductory cryptocurrency info on the Internet is basically an advertisement for something, and therefore not very useful. If anyone could create a course and publish it on equal standing with the other courses, then we'd end up with a huge pile of altcoin-pump courses, "how to make money using totally-safe HYIPs", and stuff like that. But if courses are only written by trusted & competent people after significant mod review, then only a limited number of courses could be created, and they'd probably quickly become outdated. Perhaps it'd work to do a github-style pull-request format led by some trustworthy editors. (Github could even be used, though that's pretty difficult to use for people not already familiar with git.)

Thoughts?

A good idea of course , i personally liked python / implementing crypto sounds really geeky and cool , many newbie user also can take advantage from making money online course.

Hope all goes smoothly and cant wait for this course stuff will be coming ( even tho its still planning )

[Jet Cash]

I've been playing with the ILIAS software, and so far, I'm quite impressed. I'll probably keep the site, and use if tor instruction about the domain name system, and topics like that. I don't understand enough about it to know if it could be intergrated into Bitcoin Talk though.

[Mianae]

 - A long & advanced course on implementing a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency largely from scratch in Python or another easy language. (Some of my best courses in university had this model, where you're provided a bunch of library code and then you glue it together by writing a few hundred lines for each assignment, at the end of the course getting some sort of complete thing.)

This will be good. some days back, I was looking to see if i could find any thread that was about basic programming lessons for a starter. I got some feedback about where I can learn from the scratch and I have started. This will be a more added advantage to me when i have the basic knowledge of programming languages.

[paxmao]

I would favour the courses themselves being tied as much as possible to the forum itself, being a proprietary feature, since it could help to boost it’s profile and position as well as to underline it’s mission.

I agree, many people would be willing to volunteer work for the forum, I not so sure of doing so for an externally owned platform that may have some rights on the contents or may close operations, may start charging fees, may gather user data,.... There are many problems that come with outsourcing.

Regarding contents, this would be a White TOC for discussion:

0. The Forum
0.1 Being a constructive bitcointalk.org member (inc descriptions of activity, merit and trust)
0.2 Resources to improve your written English.
0.3 Help keeping the forum clean (how to report abuse in the forum or the campaigns)

1. Cryptocurrencies

1.1 Intro to Cryptocurrency
      A bit of history, a bit of basic technical background some basic terms to understand the rest of the materials.
1.3 Buying safely
1.4 Storing safely

2.  Investing in Crypto
2.1    Buy and Hodl
2.2    Trading
         Basics of technical trading
         Advanced concepts
2.3    ICOs and ITOs
         2.2.1 - Basic concepts (MarketCap, issuance, value of the tokens).
         2.2.2 - Due diligence for non-experts
         2.2.3 - Basics of venture capital investment and Startups
         2.2.4 - Understanding risk and reward
         2.2.5 - Accelerated MBA crash course

3.     Other ways of earning crypto
3.1      Airdrops,  faucets and freebies.
3.2      Promotions and campaigns
3.2.1   Signature
3.2.2   Socials
3.2.3   Other
3.3 KYC and your personal data

(As long as campaigns are allowed in the forum is better to guide the users towards taking part in them constructively rather than ignoring their existence)

4. Crypto Technology
4.1 Bitcoin
4.2 Alts
4.3 Programming resources

This is an Alfa TOC and includes some previous ideas of other members.

[tranthidung]

Today, I found this course by chance in another topic.
I would like to share it with Theymos, our prestigious admin.
Cryptocurrency Investment and Disruption (from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE))

Hope this one is a helpful information for the ambitious topic.

[Welsh]

I don't think its a problem in finding the people willing to help out, and volunteer their time. Its the fact that a lot of these people who can write about the technical stuff will not be able to format the course effectively for those that are learning. Something similar to Gits pull requests should be enough for keeping it up to date, and relevant. Pedagogy is an art. Its one thing gathering the information, and setting it out in a logical order, but actually formatting it for ease of learning can be difficult.

[paxmao]

I don't think its a problem in finding the people willing to help out, and volunteer their time. Its the fact that a lot of these people who can write about the technical stuff will not be able to format the course effectively for those that are learning. Something similar to Gits pull requests should be enough for keeping it up to date, and relevant. Pedagogy is an art. Its one thing gathering the information, and setting it out in a logical order, but actually formatting it for ease of learning can be difficult.

Oh, well, you need to start by setting some objectives and open a discussion and one of the tools that are useful for that is a TOC just like the one I suggested above. It is, in a way, an orderly brainstorm on the contents, not that different from a Mind Map but faster and easier to post.

Normally, it will be the contents and the objectives (which should be the other area of discussion) the factors that will determine the tools your need.

Regarding voluntary work, I can only speak for myself but I am volunteering work for the forum, not for other purposes. I am absolutely fine with other people, are more condescending on that point and I am also fine if other people are considered more qualified to develop the topics (I am not going to provide my CV nor identity).

No doubt it is an art and each teacher or training professional have their own ways. Mine is based on an Lean Enterpeneurship approach to the course. Build the MVP, get feed-back-improve - rinse and repeat. The MVP does not need videos nor sophisticated platforms for sure. One you hit the "market" you will discover if your public wants that or maybe something completely different that you did not even consider.

[xtraelv]

Courses could be developed in self moderated threads for brainstorming  (and where scammers are deleted) and then post the finished products as a locked thread.

I like what paxmao is suggesting.

[tranthidung]

Being stimulated by the topic of @Theymos, I created my topics on blockchain and bitcoin courses (most of them are free courses) to help crypto newcomers to easily get basic stuffs on blockchain technology.
My collection can help them to save time, hence using these saved time to learn, practice more.
Additionally, I guess part of them are not familiar with using search feature of the forum, so the collection will sure be helpful.
Available courses on Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology from colleges and Universities

[HI-TEC99]

...

Some different/modified software would be needed. The existing threads structure is not at all suitable. Neither are wiki pages, since they're too easily messed-with. Maybe some suitable online-course software already exists. It'd be cool if the courses were internally gamified a bit, maybe with "achievements" and stuff. And it could be integrated with the main forum, eg. giving you badges on your profile if you completed a course.

...

Thoughts?

Some open source GPL freeware called moodle might be suitable for hosting bitcointalk courses.

A lot of Universities use it to deliver courses. This is Cambridge University's opinion of it.

https://www.student-systems.admin.cam.ac.uk/moodle

Moodle is a popular, flexible Virtual Learning Environment that is designed to support face-to-face teaching with a wide range of versatile online tools, as well as providing a place to upload resources for courses.  It is very popular around the world as a tool for creating online dynamic teaching sites and supporting classroom training.

Developed by pedagogical experts, Moodle is a mature system with a strong and enthusiastic international community of users and developers.

Many other students and academics around the University are already familiar with the system having used it in previous institutions.  It is easy and intuitive to use, both for delivering courses and for learning.

It's available from here.

https://moodle.org/

It's not just for face to face teaching, it has a whole range of tools for hosting online distance learning courses, not just forums and wikis.

This page details its features, and points out that "classes can be instructor-led, self-paced, blended or entirely online".

https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Features

The only downside to it is some of its modules require javascript.

[CoinLearn_org]

Thoughts?

Here is something I proposed - Contribute to CryptoCurrency learning portal CoinLearn.org.

Additionally, I'd request u to recover my stolen profile CoinLearn. Details - Urgent: Business account with green trust has been stolen. An already establishedprofile would immensely help to spearhead such a project.

[th3nolo]

I found this post by a forum ad, I hope I am not committing a fault by bumping it. Was anything finally achieved? or was it a proposal that was dropped?

[AverageGlabella]

I found this post by a forum ad, I hope I am not committing a fault by bumping it. Was anything finally achieved? or was it a proposal that was dropped?

Bitcointalk courses has yet to become a thing and despite many people supporting the idea there has been no offocial word that progress has been made. Assuming that the courses have started being developed it would probably take a number of years before anything substantial was released. College courses are constantly developed and even have student feedback to improve the courses but because this is coming from a non educational body the content would need to be good from the get go otherwise it could look amateurish.