Edtech platforms tout Web3 in ‘gamification’ of learning

Educators are touting Web3, the decentralized version of the internet, as a way to “gamify” learning.

“How do you use gamification to actually make learning interesting?” said Shiela L. Marcelo, co-founder and chief executive officer of Proof of Learn (POL), a Web3 education platform, at the recent Philippine Web3 Festival. “If you do it through games and something fun, it feels tangible.”

Metacrafters, POL’s first project, is a “multichain learn-and-earn platform” that trains Web3 developers in an immersive gaming experience.

National Teachers College signed up for the learn-to-earn game in order to learn Web3-centric skills such as writing smart contracts, minting nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and building social networks.

“What we say at Metacrafters is, you learn-and-earn, and [then] you land Web3 jobs,” said Ms. Marcelo. “There’s the word crypto, there’s the word blockchain, there’s the word Web3 … Unpack all those words for simplicity and remove all the jargon so it’s not dependent on the Bitcoin whitepaper to explain it.”

Web3 has its share of detractors given recent issues such as the implosion of FTX, one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges; and the collapse of Axie Infinity, a play-to-earn game.

The education platform Nas Company, for its part, created a Web3 Metaversity this August to “prepare individuals for careers of the future.”

“For us, we’re looking at NFT artists, traders, marketers,” said Jacqueline Maye Lim, Philippine country head of the Singapore-based company. “You can’t be a marketer for a crypto company without understanding the basic principles and what’s happening around it.”

Nico del Pino, co-founder of Ola.GG, a Spanish-speaking Web3 community out of Argentina, said that a lack of awareness hinders Web3 adoption.

“The reality today is different from what it was just a year ago, so it’s very hard to catch up,” said Mr. del Pino. “It’s quite intimidating to participate, and maybe that’s where the guilds also play a role.”

A “guild” refers to a community of “crypto-enabled developers, designers, and thinkers that share resources (be it knowledge or labor) in the pursuit of a common goal.”

Mr. del Pino noted the growth of Web3 in the country since his first visit in 2017. “Watching how adoption has taken up in the Philippines, it’s fascinating,” he said. “This is a tiny community; the potential for growth is still so large.”

The Philippines ranked 10th in the Cryptocurrency Adoption Index released this July by Australian-based financial technology website Finder. — Patricia B. Mirasol