IDEA: SN Bitcoin Classroom \ stacker news ~bitcoin

1663 sats \ 35 comments \ @IamSINGLE 3 Jul bitcoin

Last day, I commented on @siggy47's Golden Oldies #2 here #594280.

The talk started formally with me complaining about not having many AMAs these days. I like AMAs for they are generally very educational.

While commenting, an idea sprouted out of my typing so formally that we can as well start some 'Ask us anything' or may be a classroom for beginners.

A classroom that is a session, say for 1 hour, where most experienced of Stackers would be teachers. One of those Stackers would deliver a lecture on a pre decided topic about Bitcoin. Other experienced Stackers/teachers would add it to the lecture with their comments. After it all pupils (beginners) would ask if they have any confusion remaining.

So, you can see that it's just an idea came out of thin air. But, it struck me and I'm adamant to make it a reality. However, As I'm a beginner so I need a lot of input from everyone before we unfold (or may be do not proceed) SN Bitcoin classroom or SN Bitcoin Academy for everyone.

These are some of the things that (I think) we can/should apply-

Devising a full length course which will be divided in three parts—A beginner, An intermediate and An Advanced level.
Enrolling students to the course who are willing to take part on a daily basis.
Giving regular tests and a final test after the completion of each level.
All those who successfully complete a level will be conferred with a certificate of appreciation signed by Nyms of their teachers.

Things that I'm not sure about:

As this will require efforts from our experienced Stackers as teachers, I want to know your interest on it. Would you be willing to devote a few minutes of SN presence for educating beginners?

To my knowledge I've come to know a few great minds who I want to invite to take the responsibility of they like.

@siggy47 @Undisciplined @DarthCoin @davidw @benthecarman @k00b @ek @jimmysong @Natalia

The syllabus for every stage. As this course would be much expansive consisting every bit of Bitcoin, it would be very king id someone (anyone who is willing to be the teacher) takes the responsibility and come up with a syllabus for every level.
Should we have an off day or a weekend holiday?

These are all the things I could attach to this idea. As I've already said I'm adamant to see it happening, I want your genuine inputs for the idea. Also kindly confer any new suggestion, criticism and whatever you like to share.

I know this idea is very loosely drafted but kindly consider it because this may be an opportunity to add a new and properly organised dimension to Bitcoin Education for anyone who is just coming into Bitcoin with little to no knowledge.

Thank you so much!

Waiting for your responses...

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290 sats \ 1 reply \ @Taft 3 Jul

I think the best way to do this is what @grayruby proposed: writing questions in the bitcoin beginners territory or the saloon. Experienced stackers are making their contribution by posting great stuff. It would be too much to ask them to write even lectures, imo.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 3 Jul

Than you so much for your input.

I'm not specifically asking to write it. They can even link it with a previously written article and after a slight interaction we can take the questions from the topic for the day. It would be nice to decide on course to adopting something.

287 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 3 Jul

I don't know how formal this needs to be. I would just suggest new stackers post the questions they have in bitcoin beginners and tag the people who you think can help you most. There are tons of bitcoin resources out there to learn anything but it can also be overwhelming so it might be as simple as asking the questions and having knowledgeable stackers to point you in the right direction.

I think that was @siggy47's original vision for the bitcoin beginners territory.

71 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 3 Jul

One of my favorite kind of SN posts are thoughtful questions about bitcoin stuff. I wouldn't mind seeing more of that if a classroom doesn't make sense.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 3 Jul

Well, we'll organise this class in ~bitcoin_beginners without a doubt. This is little different from asking a simple question by tagging anyone. As I said, it will be like a classroom and a well organised course where teachers teach step by step without leaving any topic.

219 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 3 Jul freebie

A classroom that is a session, say for 1 hour, where most experienced of Stackers would be teachers. One of those Stackers would deliver a lecture on a pre decided topic about Bitcoin.

As this will require efforts from our experienced Stackers as teachers, I want to know your interest on it. Would you be willing to devote a few minutes of SN presence for educating beginners?

This confuses me. You first write "lecture of one hour" which also means time to prepare the material etc. (so more than one hour) but then you write "devote a few minutes".

You seem to be talking about a bitcoin school with courses, syllabus and exercises. This sounds a lot like Base58 from @niftynei. Base58 courses cost money because they require a lot of work.

You not only need to know what you're talking about, you also need to know how to teach it effectively.

I'm sorry to say, but I think you're underestimating how much work this requires or I am misunderstanding something.

If I don't, I agree with @grayruby. I think this is too formal and requires too much buy-in. I think there are already a lot of free resources to learn from. If you have specific questions, you can ask them in ~bitcoin_beginners.

128 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 4 Jul

This confuses me. You first write "lecture of one hour" which also means time to prepare the material etc. (so more than one hour) but then you write "devote a few minutes".

Okay, I acknowledge I've underestimated (may be) time required to; also it leads to a confusion. But I was talking with view in my mind that we already have a lot of content and for many topics we will just need to align it to the classroom sessions. This will reduce efforts and time for most of the classes.

This sounds a lot like Base58 from @niftynei.

At first glance, these courses seem to be designed for someone who is willing to learn coding or technical part of blockchain etc. I don't say, I don't want to include technical knowledge in the classroom but that would be in the advanced level classes.

Who I really want to target with these classrooms are newbies who have just stepped foot in Bitcoin want to learn everything from the basics.

After everyone's valuable input, I think I should come up with another post where I'll add these thoughts.

149 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 3 Jul freebie

there are already a lot of free resources to learn from

To back this up a little:

Mastering Bitcoin is officially available for free online here. I bought the book because I wanted to read it offline but after I read it, it boggles my mind that such good information is available for free. Really shows how much Andreas Antonopoulos cares about bitcoin.

Mastering the Lightning Network is also available for free online here and is of similar high quality.

Most of my bitcoin and lightning knowledge is from these two books. They are also good to look some stuff up.

128 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 4 Jul

Thanks for your valuable input!

I'll study the material you linked and it'll be a real help to going forward with this idea.

178 sats \ 7 replies \ @Undisciplined 3 Jul

I may be very active on SN, but no one should be taking bitcoin lessons from me. I am still fairly new to it, as well, and am still very much in the process of learning from those others.

53 sats \ 1 reply \ @IamSINGLE OP 3 Jul

Thanks but I still feel that you'll be a great fit to teach at least the beginners course and also the intermediate one. Kindly give it a thought again.

I've come up with this because I feel that there's a great need of formal education. I meet a lot of people and when I ask about Bitcoin they simply reply with such answer which have no base.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 3 Jul

I can speak to economic questions that relate to bitcoin, but I'm sure that I'm below the median stacker in terms of knowing the technical aspects of bitcoin and the related technologies.

143 sats \ 4 replies \ @grayruby 3 Jul

I don't know about a bitcoin teacher but I would pay for your online course on how to get someone to pay you to "work" in a manner in which you can be on SN all day.

41 sats \ 2 replies \ @0fje0 4 Jul

Ah, so I'm not the only one wondering about this?

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 4 Jul

Here's a freebie:

In computationally heavy data work, there's lots of downtime after you press "run".

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 5 Jul freebie

So basically this in another context?

https://m.stacker.news/38396

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 3 Jul

That mystery will be revealed someday.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 3 Jul

Isn't SN no longer a big classroom? For me, this is a forum.

32 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 3 Jul

It's a forum, it's a great place, it's an academy, it's very special. I'm just trying to incorporate a very specific point that we need very formal education for beginners who are so very new that they even don't understand too much about Bitcoin.

Beginners, generally Google 'what is Bitcoin?', they get this answer. Whether this is correct or not, as a beginner I even can't confirm it. Leave it, I don't know what's the next think I should learn. ?

Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Nodes in the peer-to-peer bitcoin network verify transactions through cryptography and record them in a public distributed ledger, called a blockchain, without central oversight. —Wikipedia

22 sats \ 4 replies \ @Satosora 3 Jul

This is interesting, but... How will the newer people know to look into these topics? Is there going to be some signage pushing them in this direction?

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @Coinsreporter 3 Jul

That's the one thing, I thought about it!

Also, I think for formal education people don't respect free things.

11 sats \ 2 replies \ @Satosora 4 Jul

I guess it depends on what the subject is. Having a bitcoin academy or stacker news academy might be interesting.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinsreporter 4 Jul

Yes, a very interesting one. However, the idea needs to evolve a lot more as you can see in the comments.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 4 Jul

It takes time to flesh out a good idea.

49 sats \ 1 reply \ @south_korea_ln 3 Jul

As much as i want to applaud your enthusiasm and initiative, you are vastly underestimating the time and effort that is needed to make quality lecture material, especially for free...

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 4 Jul

Thanks for your input.

I acknowledge that I've underestimated time and efforts but this won't be a classroom for free. The stacker who will lead the classroom on a given day would be forwarded all the sats or a huge portion (in case others are also involved) portion that the lecture post will get.

For time, I think we already have a lot of material on basic to intermediate level topics. It's just that we can align them to the classroom post by pinning or quoting or may be reposting as link.

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinAbhi 3 Jul

I think, this is a good idea. I am new here. It can be a great opportunity for me and for anyone else like me. I also request everyone experienced to be our mentor.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @jimmysong 5 Jul

I've been teaching for years and here are a few things to consider.

Lecture material takes about 10x the length of the lecture to prepare the first time and it may not even be good. A 1 hour lecture therefore, is minimum 10 hours of work.
Material also sucks the first time, maybe the second third and fourth time, too. You need lots of reps to make it good and you need intelligent feedback from students to improve it. Revising is not as easy as it sounds and often takes as much time as making the lecture material.
Believe it or not, it's very hard to find motivated students. Lots of people say they want to learn only to doomscroll Instagram during class time. This is probably the most demotivating thing for a teacher as all your efforts goes essentially for nothing.

This is why it doesn't work to offer classes for free. The students don't have enough skin in the game, the lecturers don't have the incentive to make good material and it just becomes another failed education initiative like the many that are already out there.

Honestly, you want someone to hold your hand through learning Bitcoin without paying for it. It's not going to work for you or them. Go buy one of the many books that exist already and learn that way instead of trying to make something happen for free.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 6 Jul

I agree to all your points and now I've a different plan and I'll soon come up with it. May be Stackers would like the new one!

11 sats \ 3 replies \ @Natalia 4 Jul

I don't mind helping newcomers ( in fact, I always check the new posts about Bitcoin to see where I can chip in ) , but on my own time/schedule, having this one-hour fix classroom feels more like work than fun tbh. 👀

11 sats \ 2 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 4 Jul

It'll be fun because we won't make it too traditional. It will much the same as discussions we do here. It's just that we reply if a new Stackers has a query. For that too we'll have a group of Stackers of whom anyone who's available can reply. Infact anyone experienced can reply, it's not bound to you or anyone else.

After listening to everyone's thoughts here, I've come to a conclusion that I've made it a little overburdening or strict on time. I'll soon come up with a revised idea.

Thanks for your reply and showing interest to help beginners!!

11 sats \ 1 reply \ @Natalia 4 Jul

maybe make it more fun ✨😎

but I assumed the best way for beginners to learn is asking good questions, and seeing someone actually did the work ( learning and testing ) stackers are probably more willing to help this way too.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 4 Jul

Right! That's why I've thought of something else and will post it once I'm ready with it.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @SatsMate 4 Jul

THis is definitely something I would be intersted in! I'm always trying to sharpen my knowledge on bitcoin and other topics surrounding it.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @160ed04091 3 Jul

it would also be helpful if you made a video relating to the topic and paste the link at the bottom during any session to give clarity