Project Updates: EduSteem
The first project I started when I joined the STEEM network EduSteem is an educational software designed for small and non traditional schools. The application is designed to encompass every aspect of the students educational journey while focusing on learning and retention. The software has both a Desktop and a Mobile version and when complete will work with the STEEM block chain to share lesson plans, student reports, and student created content. I was working tirelessly up till the beginning of the school year to make sure it was working for my students and was able to get most of what was needed done before classes started. However, the ability to push to STEEM wasn't complete and due to the full time job of teaching, and if I'm honest all my other projects, I haven't had time to finish that last and most important part.
Is it a DAPP?
I have a very strict view of what a dapp is and isnt. EduSteem will use the STEEM blockchain and IPFS for certain features, however at the time of this writing the core functionality is not decentralized. OpenSeed at some point will become federated but at the moment, there is a central point of failure. Thus, not a DAPP.
Is it a Webapp
No, though I have nothing against webapps I believe that local applications can do a lot more with a lot less. This application does connect to servers in a client server relationship. This relationship is asynchronous allowing students and teachers to continue working with or without a connection to the internet. In the current version there is still a reliance on a remote server to turn in their work, but there are plans to either containerize OpenSeed so that a school can run their own instance or create a server daemon that is only focused on local connections. Both have their merit but it has yet to be decided.
Below is a list of all the current features both planed and implemented.
Features:
Desktop
The desktop version is broken into two modes, Teacher and Student. In the beginning these were going to be two separate applications but the cross over in the code made it clear that a single interface was more effective. This also cuts down on bloat and saves single computer families the trouble of juggling more software than needs be.
| Name | Function | Status |
|---|---|---|
| User and school setup | Currently schools and users are stored in OpenSeed a network API created by yours truly for other projects. | Working |
| Class / Unit / Lesson | Once you have setup an educator account you can add, modify, and share lesson plans or complete Units / Classes | All internal functionality works, but sharing to STEEM is not working yet |
| Scheduling | When classes are and how long they last is a little free flowing at my school, but for those that need more rigged scheduling its available. | Mostly working. Need to improve the UX |
| Teacher Controls | As an educator you have complete control over what your students active tasks are, whether the task is "done", or if you just want to skip it all together. | Working |
| Grading | As said before I personally don't believe in grading in the way most educational institutions want it to be done. The student has a week long set of tasks that must be turned in to receive top marks at the end of the week. The difference between this and standard grading is that when a student turns in their work the Teacher reads through the assignment and either accepts it or doesn't. | Work flow is still a little clunky, but works |
| Reporting | This is where STEEM gets involved. When a student is done with their weekly work -or- the last day of the week has past. A report is generated with quick stats at the top along with a summary of the tasks the student was set to accomplish, and their submissions to each task. This report is published on the block chain with the Teacher and Student set as beneficiaries. This is to encourage both the teacher and student along with helping fund the students education through. | In Development |
| Special Reports | Each class assignment should have a task for the students to complete. (examples: Writing a summary, solving math problems, uploading a video or image, etc.) While most tasks would be added to the report at the end of the week the teacher can set up "Special Reports" where the student can (once approved by the educator) post their work directly to the chain. These reports don't include the educator as a beneficiary so all proceeds would go back to the student. | In Development |
Mobile
| Name | Function | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Quizzes | In each lesson plan the teacher can setup questions that will be added to a randomly generated daily quiz that can be accessed through the mobile client. The general idea at the moment is to have a parent(or teacher) run through the daily quiz. Rewards for doing well on the quiz could be in software "currency" to get themes or maybe educational games that integrate with the EduSteem software. | Working but not tested extensively |
| Reports | Parents shouldn't have to bother the teacher for progress reports....This shows you those | Working |
| Lesson View | For teachers during class the lesson view allows teachers to quickly access lesson tasks to stream line teaching | Working |
| Review View | Student assignment review and approval area. Similar to the Lesson View you can approve or send back work to the student with a note as to why it was sent back. | In Development |
Future plans
- You don't know Jack styled quiz game where you would have the class buzz in to answer.
- Games designed to work with the software directly
- desktop control, to keep students that have their own laptops on task -or- to setup a reward system where the computer doesn't allow any other application to launch until their school works is done.
As always it is my hope that this software along with any of the other projects I have undertaken will be found useful to the community.
Other reading on the project:
- Introduction
- Week 1
- Week 2
- Week 3a
- Week 3b
- Week 4
- Student DashBoard
- Student Interaction
- IPFS support
- Week 6
- Mobile Unit
About
In the next few posts to my main account I'll be going over each or my current projects both STEEM and non STEEM related. I hope that, in someway, these projects are of interest to my readers. If you are interested in any of the projects feel free to follow me and @v-entertainment. If you have questions feel free to drop a comment below.
Congratulations @bflanagin! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click here to view your Board of Honor
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
Hi @bflanagin!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 2.889 which ranks you at #11422 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 221 places in the last three days (old rank 11643).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 288 contributions, your post is ranked at #263.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
Hi, @bflanagin!
You just got a 6.98% upvote from SteemPlus!
To get higher upvotes, earn more SteemPlus Points (SPP). On your Steemit wallet, check your SPP balance and click on "How to earn SPP?" to find out all the ways to earn.
If you're not using SteemPlus yet, please check our last posts in here to see the many ways in which SteemPlus can improve your Steem experience on Steemit and Busy.