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by reificator 1864 days ago
A classroom has a trusted central authority. Even assuming some kind of educational benefit from students racing to be first, how on earth does blockchain accomplish anything there?

I really really hope that all the blockchain hype is from people who got in early and want to pump up the value before they get out. Because otherwise the invented solutions and worse invented problems are too absurd for me to handle.
1 comments
ipaddr 1864 days ago
We see examples already where a central authority is not necessary like peer grading.

The race condition could work in a bonus question where the first person to answer correctly takes the bonus marks. Students would have the opportunity to submit answers, get confirmed correct without the teacher needing to manage this.

That central authority is a bottleneck and at times corrupt. We don't trust central authority in government so three different levels of government have to reach an alignment for a law to be passed. Police powers are separate from judigical powers for a reason. Decentralization balances interests.

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reificator 1864 days ago
> That central authority is a bottleneck and at times corrupt. We don't trust central authority in government so three different levels of government have to reach an alignment for a law to be passed. Police powers are separate from judigical powers for a reason. Decentralization balances interests.

That is a hell of a lot to write about checks and balances to try to defend the absurd concept of a blockchain classroom quiz. This is exactly what I mean when I say I hope people are just trying to pump up the value and don't actually think this is a solution that provides any value.

If you have a corrupt teacher that can't be trusted/abuses their power somehow, the blockchain is not going to magically improve your education. The concept is absurd.

If you're writing a classroom quiz where students race to finish, a server to handle grading and track scores is the way to go. Or if the device is locked down do the grading there and just take a timestamp.

Hello dystopian future where I get quoted like the famous Dropbox post. I hope I'm not still there amongst you.

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