My class had their first practical Bitcoin exercise

[Pokapoka124]

A few months ago,  I made this post here. And after reading all of the suggestions, this is what my class did on the last week before the Salah break.

I teach a class of forty students. To begin the class, I needed a projector, 10 computers and my personal computer to use as an example. I had to rent the computers for the day, that morning I downloaded Electrum wallet ( because it's my favorite) on all of the laptops and made sure the program ran smoothly on the PCs.

All Good!!!

The morning of the lesson, I divided the class  into ten groups of four with each group having a laptop each.  The 10 laptops were evenly placed across my classroom.  I had the advantage to do this before the assembly meeting because I had the first period. We began the class with a little revision. We watched Bitcoin Q&A: How Do I Choose a Wallet? by Andreas Antonopoulos on the projector.

The instructions for the exercise were as follows:

1. Create a personal wallet on Electrum

2. Write down your private keys

3. Each student is to decide how best to store  their private keys

4. Sign/Verify a message with their address

Observations

The students were impressive, the exercise didn't take them long to complete. Some of my students who had taken a strong interest in bitcoin before the lesson were already familiar with Bitcoin wallets and had a very easy time using electrum. I observe they were not very secretive with your private keys - a point I will emphasize more on in our next class. Electrum wallet seem boring or should I say less colorful for them. I could see they enjoyed signing a message with their address, they had the same expression as when they first did "Hello world!" program on fortran.
My only regret is the students didn't have the opportunity to o perform a real transaction with their new Bitcoin wallets. Unfortunately I don't have enough bitcoins to splash for them to practice how to send/receive Bitcoin.
 

[Piesel]

Quite a lot of transformations have happened over time and knowledge about Bitcoin and wallets is needed at an early stage, but also since you did not specify the age level of your students and their grade level we may not see it as necessary for them to make a transaction, giving them the basic knowledge is enough at whatever age so anyone that picks interest may indicate and go further to make a purchase and sending using the electron wallet you thought them.

[The Cryptovator]

Don't regret mate. You tried your best and it's a good initiative to teach your students. Once they will be more interested in Bitcoin definitely they will come to you. So then you may teach them practically how to transfer Bitcoin from wallets. Also, there are a lot of videos on YouTube on how to transfer Bitcoin. They would learn if they are curious enough. From your end, you are doing great to adopt Bitcoin. Your students are lucky, to be honest, they are learning the perfect thing in a perfect way. Keep it up, mate.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

My only regret is the students didn't have the opportunity to o perform a real transaction with their new Bitcoin wallets. Unfortunately I don't have enough bitcoins to splash for them to practice how to send/receive Bitcoin.

Nothing to regret. You gave them a start now they will drive their car. It needs interest too. Keep feeding them with interesting events of Bitcoins like Bitcoin Pizza. History of bitcoin. Introduce them legends like Hal finny, satoshi. Give them idea how to earn bitcoin by working for it, how it's easy to send money to others to any corner of the world, how can they cash out to fiat etc.

Give them the idea that Bitcoin is the future money or at-least an asset that store better value than gold and property. "bitcoins" Is Financial Freedom.

I wish all these bitcoiners best of luck and looking forward to see their existence on the forum.

[Rruchi man]

My only regret is the students didn't have the opportunity to o perform a real transaction with their new Bitcoin wallets. Unfortunately I don't have enough bitcoins to splash for them to practice how to send/receive Bitcoin.
 

You have done enough OP, there's no need for regrets, renting 10 laptops must have already cost you something. You have set the pace, for others who want to follow to follow. These important role you have played in the life of these students can help shape the financial life of those who take cryptocurrency seriously.

As a suggestion OP, you can consider creating a WhatsApp/Telegram group for the students who are interested to join so you can continue to render guidance to these younglings from anywhere you relocate to.

but also since you did not specify the age level of your students and their grade level we may not see it as necessary for them to make a transaction,

This is a follow up post from him as he indicated, from the previous post which he referenced, he mentioned the kids to be in secondary/high school, so assuming their age range, It should be from about 11-21years.

[SatoPrincess]

This is a great initiative. You are doing a really great job, despite the challenges you are facing. Your students are fortunate to be learning about bitcoin from a veteran member of this forum. The regular school curriculum denies these students the opportunity to learn about new innovations. I’m not surprised the students are still learning Fortran program when the world has moved on to more advanced programming language.

[sheenshane]

Electrum wallet seem boring or should I say less colorful for them.

First, it's a great initiative that you've taught them about Bitcoin and how to store it safely.  But I think, not only Electrum wallet, teach them about other open-source wallets that can be used.  Next is, different wallets that they should be aware what are custodial and non-custodial wallets and also hardware wallets.  But at least you get their interest in Bitcoin and that's enough for now, it might they will have their own research as well since you've mentioned that some of them showed interest.

They must understand the true meaning of the utility of Bitcoin or show them the roadmap of Bitcoin, not just by making a profit.

[TimeTeller]

Electrum wallet seem boring or should I say less colorful for them.

First, it's a great initiative that you've taught them about Bitcoin and how to store it safely.  But I think, not only Electrum wallet, teach them about other open-source wallets that can be used.  Next is, different wallets that they should be aware what are custodial and non-custodial wallets and also hardware wallets.  But at least you get their interest in Bitcoin and that's enough for now, it might they will have their own research as well since you've mentioned that some of them showed interest.

They must understand the true meaning of the utility of Bitcoin or show them the roadmap of Bitcoin, not just by making a profit.

That's a good start actually. Electrum needs small space unlike the bitcoin core wallet.
So practically, this is a lot easier to install and start their journey in bitcoin.
Other wallets can come next as they get a good understanding about custodial and non-custodial wallets .
Some of these students will be thankful to the OP in the future, as some of them will make a living out of this market.

[Slow death]

congratulations on the initiative, it is very good that you are helping people and about not being able to have bitcoins for all of them to test in practice, I would suggest that you send your bitcoins to one of the students, and then that student would send it to another student, and so on successively until the last student would send it to you, that way everyone could have the opportunity to practice, of course they would have to deal with the issue of delay in confirming the transaction and high fees, but also this experience will be good for students to see in practice that they will be able to face this type of situations whenever they deal with bitcoin

[GreatArkansas]

I have a suggestion. This is very effective for all especially those who are starting to use Bitcoin.
They should aware of some basic security on the internet, like avoiding phishing sites, and how to secure private keys. How to spot scammers and avoid it.
How to spot some fake websites or platforms that will attempt to scam or some malware or phishing.
By doing this, we can protect our Bitcoin, especially the wallets.

[Smack That Ace]

snip~
My only regret is the students didn't have the opportunity to o perform a real transaction with their new Bitcoin wallets. Unfortunately I don't have enough bitcoins to splash for them to practice how to send/receive Bitcoin.
 

You did an excellent job and it's really just a little bit away from your student's first bitcoin lesson to come to a perfect end. It would be great if we could set up a simulated environment in which students can experience bitcoin trading first-hand. Students will feel how different bitcoin works when comparing them to fiat.

[Kemarit]

Yeah, as others say, there should be no regrets on your end, you did your part already and I think that's enough for them at this time.

And maybe it will really interest some of them, Electrum UI might be boring with no colors and it's simply. But I guess that's it the strong suit of Electrum and for sure your students will fine it later if they dig themselves in Bitcoin later in their life.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

1. Create a personal wallet on Electrum

You should teach them how to use Electrum single signature wallet and multi signature (co-sign) wallet.

2. Write down your private keys

Need to be clearer. Private key or mnemonic seed?

In Electrum wallet, when you create a new wallet, what the software gives you is mnemonic seed, not private key. To get private key (after you create your wallet, you must do other steps.

Furthermore, write down mnemonic seed is easier and avoid mistake than write down private key.

3. Each student is to decide how best to store  their private keys

You should teach them to recover their wallets by typing their mnemonic seed or recover a single receiving address by importing its private key.

Choose "I already have a seed"
or click on Wallet, Private key, Export and get a file for private keys of all addresses in that wallet
or click on Addresses tab, choose a receiving address, right click to choose Private key and get it.

I don't prefer to use this method, dump private key. I would like to back up and recover with my mnemonic seed that is simpler and I can secure it better. With a file of private key, I see it more vulnerable to hack.

In addition, when creating a wallet, after typing a wallet password, always choose "Encrypt wallet file". It activates a security with wallet password and secure the wallet file.

If anyone use the same computer and see that wallet, to access it, must know a wallet password or has to brute force it.

[Maus0728]

...
My only regret is the students didn't have the opportunity to o perform a real transaction with their new Bitcoin wallets. Unfortunately I don't have enough bitcoins to splash for them to practice how to send/receive Bitcoin.
 

Why not give the Electrum Testnet Client a try? This way, you will be able to demonstrate sending and receiving bitcoin in real time, much like an actual bitcoin transaction.

Running Electrum testnet, on the other hand, can be as simple as downloading the Electrum client itself as it is inlucded upon download. Alternatively, you can also make a copy of the shortcut created by the installer and change the target using the --testnet commandline argument which is best explained in this guide[1].

Now, I pretty much don't know if @notblox1 is still giving free tBTC though in the Service he offered[2].

[1] https://bitzuma.com/posts/a-beginners-guide-to-the-electrum-bitcoin-wallet/#testnet-mode
[2] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5278247.0

[xSkylarx]

Unfortunately I don't have enough bitcoins to splash for them to practice how to send/receive Bitcoin.

Why not introduce them to bitcoin faucets so each of their wallet can have a small amount then after they accumulated enough, teach them how to send/receive bitcoin. I don't know if there are websites that are really paying now but I'll drop a link for some faucets that you can try. I'm only familiar with freebitcoin on the list but trying some of them could be worth a shot for your students to learn more about bitcoin.

https://sensoriumxr.com/articles/best-bitcoin-faucets

[darkv0rt3x]

@Pokapoka124, regarding the issue of not having enough Bitcoin to send them so that they could see a real transaction happening, I could only suggest to introduce them to the LN, and then, you could raise some funds for that cause and distribute those funds to your students, via Electrum, which already supports LN. Maybe that could be an interesting addition to your classes!

[$crypto$]

No need to be sorry but you did a great job on those 40 students so they know about the bitcoin training you taught them.
This is indeed a short lesson and they certainly understand faster than the material you provide so I think you will continue to provide other initiatives for them to know more about bitcoin deeper.

If you don't have enough bitcoins to splash them on how to do bitcoin transactions the testnet way like @Maus0728 said maybe with that step they can try without having to use your own bitcoins.

[aoluain]

It would be ideal for the students to see some Satoshi's appear in their wallet and then to
be able to send further on to one of their fellow's addresses.

I wonder would many people donate a small amount of Satoshi's to your address, if a lot
of people gave a little it would accumulate to something you could work with?

My only regret is the students didn't have the opportunity to o perform a real transaction with their new Bitcoin wallets. Unfortunately I don't have enough bitcoins to splash for them to practice how to send/receive Bitcoin.

Nothing to regret. You gave them a start now they will drive their car. It needs interest too. Keep feeding them with interesting events of Bitcoins like Bitcoin Pizza. History of bitcoin. Introduce them legends like Hal finny, satoshi. Give them idea how to earn bitcoin by working for it, how it's easy to send money to others to any corner of the world, how can they cash out to fiat etc.

Give them the idea that Bitcoin is the future money or at-least an asset that store better value than gold and property. "bitcoins" Is Financial Freedom.

I wish all these bitcoiners best of luck and looking forward to see their existence on the forum.

Yes some history about Bitcoin and its leading figures would surely be interesting to the
students particularly the mystery of Satoshi and the Bitcoin wallets left abandonned.

[Maus0728]

Why not introduce them to bitcoin faucets so each of their wallet can have a small amount

The problem about using bitcoin faucet is that it entails some financial or privacy related risk. And I think that it would do more harm than good.

The time-consuming process and several small payments associated with using faucet are one of its main drawbacks. Multiple small payments (input) increase transaction size, thus increases the fees related with each on-chain transaction[1].

While I am aware that this might be a potential topic, it might lead to more confusion as they will need to learn how to combine inputs in order to reduce the transaction size and associated fees [2] as a pre-requisite.

As for any privacy and security related concerns, you can't be certain if a faucet website is legit. Back then, some faucets requires their user to download an application which might contain malwares that could compromise those laptop. Plus, they are also susceptible to some incentive-based activity that openly encourages referral spam, which is a terrible practice.

[1] https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/96125/does-number-of-inputs-or-outputs-affect-bitcoin-transaction-fee
[2] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2848987

[kryptqnick]

I think you did a good thing. You taught them about a good wallet, something easy to use and also secure. You also told them how to sign a message, which is not something everyone knows how to do.
As for private keys, that's indeed not so easy to decide on, as a passphrase can be forgotten if you don't have a very good memory, storing it online isn't safe, and writing it down on a piece of paper is probably alright if you're at home, but when you're in class where everyone's doing it, it can be weird and feel unsafe. If it was an introduction into basics of using Bitcoin, I think it was a good one.