Education Ecosystem Leverages Project-Based Learning to Teach Everything from Game Development to Site Building

TL; DR: Education Ecosystem, a decentralized learning platform, gives professionals and college students alike an opportunity to pick up new skills by building real-world products. Using video tutorials, the company arms students with the latest skills in artificial intelligence, blockchain, cybersecurity, site-building, game development, and data science, increasing both knowledge and earning potential. Education Ecosystem also capitalizes on the latest in blockchain technology to incentivize participants using its education token, LEDU.

We tend to view education as little more than a means to an end — a way to get that professional stamp of approval in the form of an academic degree. But if you’re looking for a lucrative and fulfilling career, education should be an ongoing process, not a finite stage of life.

This is especially true in the tech industry, where advancements occur at an exponential rate. The problem is, while many online learning programs exist to equip beginners with introductory skills in areas like cybersecurity, blockchain, development, and site-building, few are appropriate for those with a couple of years of experience under their belts.

To solve for this deficiency, Michael J. Garbade founded Education Ecosystem, a decentralized video tutorial program that uses real-world projects to arm seasoned professionals and college graduates with the skills they need to stay relevant.

Rather than packaging products into courses and certifications for beginners, Education Ecosystem’s peer-to-peer learning platform teaches professionals and college students how to build real products.

“Education Ecosystem was launched to plug a gap that existed in the market,” Michael said. “We help college students and professionals who already have at least two or three years of experience improve their job skills in the areas of artificial intelligence, data science, cybersecurity, blockchain, game development, and programming.”

The fast-growing startup also differentiates itself from competitors with a blockchain-based approach. Education Ecosystem rewards participants with crypto tokens to incentivize project creators and viewers to perform quality checks, moderate the community, and share projects, among other tasks.

Since launching Education Ecosystem in late 2015, Michael said he’s observed significant shifts in the IT and programming education space.

“It’s changing at an alarming rate,” he said. “The concepts taught in subjects related to future technologies in universities and colleges can become outdated almost as soon as a student graduates. Those that choose the online learning route face the challenge I previously mentioned; that the online learning platforms are focused on beginners.”

Since Education Ecosystem is ahead of the curve in that respect, the company focuses on employing the intersection of project-based learning and blockchain tokenization. The decentralized learning tool, described as ‘like Github on video for developers’ on the organization’s website, provides projects in video format or live stream, in addition to downloadable resources.

Developers can also clone resources from the Education Ecosystem Git to run on their local machine. Each project helps learners pick up best practices and tips from peers, whether they’re diving into the world of game development or site-building.

“The project-based learning method allows students and professionals on our platform to learn faster through the concept of learning by doing,” Michael said. “They are challenged to solve practical problems instead of learning by memorizing. Blockchain tokenization further improves the learning experience.”

Education Ecosystem grants its crypto token, referred to as LEDU, to learners as well as the instructors who create projects on the platform in exchange for various tasks. Those tasks include creating a project, sharing a project, watching a project video, suggesting a project, and working as a company moderator. As subject matter experts, creators are compensated in both LEDU and cash.

Developers can trade LEDU on major cryptocurrency exchanges. “The use of tokenization has improved the completion rates for students who learn using projects,” Michael said.

More than 5 million people spanning 194 countries have turned to Education Ecosystem since its inception for educational resources. In that time, more than 13,000 streamers have created 200,000-plus video tutorials.

“As I mentioned, the majority of online learning platforms target beginners who are new to the areas that we cover,” Michael said. “Unfortunately, after gaining theoretical knowledge, students on these platforms have no experience in building real-world projects.”

Michael told us the platform is one of the only solutions on the market to help tech professionals and college grads harness text-book knowledge by applying it in a hands-on way.

“In a way, we don’t have competitors,” he said. “In fact, online education platforms, students, and employers need us to bridge the gap between experienced professionals and students who are just getting their feet wet in a certain industry.”

Experienced professionals in the Education Ecosystem community create practical projects that students or less experienced professionals can rely on to hone their skills. To that end, the organization boasts a comprehensive list of offerings — from development and design-focused tutorials to programs in data science and AI.

If you’re looking to advance your development and site-building skills, for example, you could check out a tutorial on creating a job search website using Laravel and VueJS. Also on the application and site-building front, you could explore system analysis and design techniques for creating a web app like an e-learning website.

Or dive into the crypto world with a series on building a blockchain lending system in C#. Blockchain development and creating smart contracts are popular topics on the site, which is a given being that Education Ecosystem users are paid in cryptocurrency.

Game development also tends to generate a buzz on the platform. Interested in building a browser-based battle royale game? There’s a tutorial for that, too, among many other topics far and wide.

“These projects can often be created in less than a week, whereas for other platforms, it takes longer, even up to three months,” Michael said. “As a result, content production costs are less expensive, which directly impacts viewers: It allows them to access the content for free. It’s a win-win situation: money and time are saved without compromising the quality of the tutorials.”

When it comes to internal development, Education Ecosystem is always adding new projects based on the creative feedback provided by users.

“We have a Proof of Work initiative where existing LEDU token holders and new subscribers suggest a project and earn LEDU based on their suggestion,” Michael said. “We have criteria for project creation. If a suggested project meets the criteria, is well-researched and unique, it is brought to life by a project creator and the member who suggested it is rewarded with LEDU.”

Education Ecosystem also has a large community of creators who connect to share suggestions for improvement and best-practice tips. “The community is moderated by project creation managers in each of our six categories: artificial intelligence, data science, cybersecurity, blockchain, game development, and programming,” Michael told us.

Stay tuned for development efforts designed to aid in the mitigation of COVID-19. For example, the Education Ecosystem community is currently working on a telehealth project centered on the coronavirus pandemic. “We are very much excited for the upcoming launch in the U.S., and later in the UK,” he said.