Level Up

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

See them all in this essay’s Are.na board

• Sources/The Minecraft Generation - Essay
• Sources/Its time to build - A New Worlds Fair - Essay
• Sources/The Rise and Fall of Internet Art Communities - Essay
• Sources/On Roblox Kids Learn Its Hard to Earn Money Making Games - Essay
• Sources/Capitalism in virtual worlds - Essay
• Sources/Fortnite and Minecraft are getting kids excited about learning again - Essay
• Sources/Why the Metaverse Matters - Essay
• Sources/13 Principles of Web3 - Thread
• Sources/A Digtial Yggdrasil - Education as a Public Good - Proposal
• Sources/Content, Services, and Asset Businesses in the Metaverse - Essay
• Web3’s Educational Potential
• Sources/Deschooling Society - Book
• Sources/Gamification vs Pointsification - Essay
• Sources/Is the Metaverse Finally Emerging - Essay
• Sources/The Internet As Your Resume - Essay
• Sources/Computers and Creativity - Thesis
• Sources/Video Games are the Future of Education - Essay
• Ughh as much as I don’t like Meta… Education in the metaverse

How can I bring in the idea of an infinite game…

1. How internet native youth learn outside of schools
   1. How do existing institutions — schools — fail them?
      1. Packaging instruction with certification; linking instruction (not learning) to social role assignment
      2. Most learning is the result of teaching
   2. How do alternatives such as communities (especially those found in games) serve them?
      1. Creation
         1. Creative, exploratory learning is problem-centered
      2. Collaboration
2. How current systems exploit or underserve these youth
   1. Games
      1. Creators dont get to profit from their work, only platforms
      2. IRL Inequality is elevated, as seen with virtual goods
   2. Same can be seen in education
3. Why and how we would benefit from a web3 powered future
   1. Thesis: in a web3 powered future, education is an (infinite) game
      1. An educational metaverse as the ultimate digital creative tool: “Interoperable, moldable, efficient, and community-driven digital creative tools hold immeasurable potential as co-creators with human beings. Tools of this type would lower the barrier to entry and make all users toolmakers and owners in an expanded definition of technological innovation.”"
   2. Talk about why the youth is primed for this transition
      1. Used to virtual economies
         1. E.G. play-to-earn; in worlds like Club Penguin, kids (who were free members) were used to working more time for less pay
   3. List what should be required and avoided in order to create this future
      1. Core characteristics of public goods
         1. Non-rivalrous
            1. Open to everyone
         2. Non-excludable
            1. Decentralized
      2. Other characteristics: 2. Incentives should be aligned for the good of all students 1. Gamification, not pointsification
   4. Challenges to overcome
      1. Technological challenges
         1. Internet infrastructure
         2. Feasability of having large numbers of participants interact with one another in real-time
         3. Language barriers
         4. Latency issues
      2. Other challenges (social, economic…)
         1. Personal privacy
         2. Marketplace competition
         3. Misinformation
   5. Speculative narrative of this metaverse with examples
      1. Thanks to wallets, everyone has a profile and inventory
         1. used as resume; used as passport
         2. Different skillsets = different classes a la D&D
      2. Richly populated educational environments; virtual immersive classes where people learn by doing
         1. Complete quests/bounties, get rewarded
         2. E.G. “students learn about the construction of Roman aqueducts by helping to build them.”"
      3. Teachers are levelled up; they’re now virtual architects, game designers, etc….
      4. Community-driven culture
         1. DAOs acting like guilds, onboarding new students and helping them level up
         2. Free/open-source syllabi
            1. Anyone can contribute materials and get rewarded
            2. Everyone’s always remixing…building on each other’s works

1. How digital natives learn outside of schools
   1. Introduction
      1. “You’ll find the future wherever people are having the most fun.” - Steven Johnson, Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World
      2. Talk about own personal story
         1. As a kid, I had fun in the Internet through games and art communities -> all about creation
         2. E.G. creating graphics, roleplaying -> creating stories
         3. Transition to present time, where I’m benefitting from skills I gained through fun exploration, not structured education (i.e. art and design)
      3. Now, I see kids around me growing the same way… (cite examples)
         1. future developers learning programming through games like Roblox + Minecraft
         2. future artists practicing drawing + marketing through fandom communities in Twitter, Tumblr, Discord, etc.
      4. These Present-day hobbies will seed future industries
      5. So why aren’t these hobbies taken seriously? It’s because schools are still seen as the #1 venue of a person’s development. However, there’s more to learning than what can be found in school; here’s how schools fail students, and how online spaces can make up for this — especially those powered by web3.
   2. How do schools fail students?
      1. Packaging instruction with certification; linking instruction (not learning) to social role assignment
         1. Definitions
            1. Learning = acquiring new skill/insight
            2. Promotion = social role assignment, depends on others’ opinions
            3. Instruction = choice of circumstances that facilitate learning
         2. With school, role assignment is linked to instruction, not learning
            1. Done through a curriculum of conditions a student must meet (i.e grades)
            2. Not reasonable: doesn’t link relevant competencies to roles, but instead the process by which these are acquired
            3. Not liberating: those who benefit the most from instruction are those who fit social norms (e.g. affulent, neurotypical)
         3. Even alternative education models (e.g. bootcamps, accelerators) have the same faults
            1. need to complete specified criteria in order to “graduate”
            2. certification/brand as main value prop
      2. Assuming that most learning is the result of teaching
         1. Most of the time, people acquire their knowledge not from what’s intentionally taught in school, but what they casually encounter outside it
            1. Learning happens as a by-product of some other activity (e.g. reading fluency comes from frequently reading for pleasure)
         2. Thus, the way people learn in schools isn’t optimally designed for them
            1. Centralization/standardization
               1. the scale of a school is inversely correlated with its curriculum quality, especially creative support
            2. Not rewarding failure (best way to learn)
               1. students aren’t able to grow as much due to lack of feedback
               2. afraid to explore
            3. Punitive assessments
            4. Rewarding rote work
            5. Atomizing subjects
               1. we learn about topics in silos, when in real life everything is integrated with each other
   3. How do alternatives such as virtual communities (especially those found in video games) serve them?
      1. Gives students an environment + tools where they can make discoveries themselves.
         1. Choose your own adventure: students can choose what they learn and how they learn it, instead of having to deal with the standardized way of learning things
         2. Provide space, time, and autonomy that schools do not
      2. Simulate reality + provide fast feedback loops
         1. more context = deeper understanding
         2. feedback mainly provided through real-time + async discussions with other members
         3. outputs/outcomes are tangible, directly related to the skills you learn
            1. E.G. github repos to code, pieces to art, etc
         4. digital data (e.g. social media metrics) can also help w/ feedback
2. However, current systems still exploit or underserve these youth, just like in education
   1. Creators don’t get to profit from their work, only platforms
      1. E.G. developers on Roblox find it hard to earn due to friction claiming profits + huge pay cut; creatives on social media are at the mercy of the algorithm
   2. IRL inequality is elevated thanks to digital divide
      1. those who can’t rely on their own devices or connectivity won’t be able to benefit from these spaces as much
      2. The premium experience reserved for those who can afford it; free members don’t get these benefits unless they work for it 1. E.G. memberships, virtual goods
   3. how can we tackle these problems? let’s get abstract
3. Finite -> infinite games
   1. Recap: I believe that the youth learn best in games (after all, we humans are Homo Ludens — born players). But I don’t necessarily just mean video games. I’m talking about the games we play in life.
   2. According to James Carse, there are two types of games: finite, which is played for the purpose of winning, and infinite, which is played for the purpose of continuing play.
   3. Thanks to society, most of us are playing finite games
      1. Players have to parade around their wealth and status
      2. Examples
         1. URL
            1. reaching the top of leaderboards
            2. getting reach: X followers, X likes, X shares, etc…
         2. IRL
            1. scoring the highest salary
            2. founding the next top startup
      3. This has been encouraged by our existing educational environments
         1. Schools
         2. Even online platforms
   4. It’s time for us to approach life as an infinite game
      1. The pursuit of excellence is a positive-sum game, with no finish line and no losers.
      2. Examples (according to Kevin Kelly)
         1. Evolution, life, mind, and the technium (accumulation of inventions that humans have created)
         2. The things in life we love most – including life itself – are infinite games.
      3. Instead of playing within boundaries, players play with the boundaries.
         1. May Li Khoe: instead of thinking of life as a series of checks, see it as a canvas which you can paint anyway you like. the status quo needs to change, and life is short. Thus, we need to joyfully subvert the status quo
      4. Creation + collaboration > quantification + competition
         1. the online spaces I was a part of encouraged these values
      5. I believe that Web3 is the key to this shift
4. Why and how we could benefit from a Web3 powered future
   1. In a Web3 powered future, education is an (infinite) game. What does this even mean? Or look like?
      1. What does web3-powered mean?
         1. In web3, interactions in application/software are done through wallets
         2. In web3, users reclaim ownership of the internet due to decentralization
            1. Web2: “Our consumption is driven by black-box algorithmic feeds, our work and property are only ours to borrow, and our value creation has been severely discredited. We don’t own any of our digital properties, and we’ve been wired to accept it.”
            2. Web3: now we can have control over…
               1. our work + property -> NFTs
               2. platforms we participate in -> protocols, and the way they structure incentives
      2. Web3 is helping build the foundation of the Metaverse
         1. What is the Metaverse? “the next iteration of the Internet that brings a sense of place and facilitates rich human connection.”
         2. Already being done in Web2 through social spatial software E.G. platforms like Gather and games like Roblox and Fornite
      3. How is education connected with this?
         1. We’re now entering an age of embedded education, where learning happens everywhere instead of being limited to individual platforms
            1. People learn through encounters they have through systems that may exist for non-educational purposes
            2. E.G. Communities centered around products, teaching others how to make the most out of it through shared resources, discussions, etc -> Figma, Notion
            3. Thus, learning feels more natural
         2. The Metaverse provides the perfect educational environment by…
            1. immersive; simulates reality
               1. shortened feedback loops from theory to practice: instead of reading about a topic, you experience it for yourself
            2. brings together people wth diverse ideas and interests, without the barriers of physical location
               1. more equitable and effective distribution of knowledge, skills, and information
      4. An educational metaverse would be the ultimate digital creative tool (according to Sources/Computers and Creativity - Thesis)
         1. To foster optimal human innovation, digital creative tools need to be interoperable, moldable, efficient, and community-driven.
            1. Interopability: the ability for different computers to connect and exchange information
               1. people’s works are no longer confined to singular platforms/tools
               2. this allows for more collaboration and innovation
            2. Moldability: the ability for the user to tailor their software to better address the problem they are trying to solve
               1. customizability enables creativity
            3. Efficiency
               1. The metaverse is infrastructure
               2. Makes real-time communication, managing presence, earning money, etc. easier
            4. Community-driven
               1. the people within in the metaverse is what brings it to life (i.e. content generation, community building)
         2. These tools hold potential as co-creators with human-beings. Tools of this type would lower the barrier to entry and make all users toolmakers and owners in an expanded definition of technological innovation.
            1. “If the purpose of education is to inspire courage to expand our collective understanding of the world, the vision of Embedded Education is that every time we see something that inspires us, the path to actualizing this new-found dream starts right where we find it.”
   2. The youth are already primed for this future; being immersed in digital worlds helps us transition to virtual systems. How?
      1. (Value) Creation/Contribution
         1. used to working for status/rewards
            1. E.G. levelling up by grinding through quests, or by commenting enough (Top Fan)
         2. native to virtual currencies -> tokens & wallets
         3. used to virtual goods -> NFTs
         4. willing to put up with learning curve just to have fun
         5. constant remixing & modding -> composability
            1. not just seen in game mods, but in social media e.g. Dribbble remixes, Tiktok duets
      2. Community
         1. power-users of guilds/forums/Discord -> DAOs
         2. vocal + passionate user base -> community-led governance
            1. E.G. moderators of forums
      3. Culture
         1. internet identities -> anonymity/psuedonymity/reputation
         2. internet memes + language -> web3 memes + language
   3. How can we create this future?
      1. This educational metaverse must be a public good
         1. Non-rivalrous: accessible to everybody; one person’s use of the good does not impact its availability to others
            1. intensive learning experiences like fellowships and bootcamps are inherently rivalrous, since more people = less quality interaction
         2. Non-excludable: it should be impossible to exclude anybody from using the good
            1. Cost of money, time, literacy, etc. can exclude others
      2. Creating this metaverse needs game design (integrated), not gamification (just added-on)
         1. Gamification is often pointsification, which is all about external motivation
            1. E.G. points, badges, leaderboards; a.k.a. a finite game
            2. this isn’t sustainable; doesn’t work for building actual skills long-term
         2. Games are their best when they’re played out of genuine interest; same should apply for participants of this metaverse. There must be:
            1. A goal/specific outcome that provides players with a sense of purpose
            2. Rules that place limitations on how players can achieve the goal
            3. A feedback system that tells players how close they are to achieving their goal
            4. Voluntary participation
   4. What other challenges must be overcome?
      1. Technological challenges
         1. Internet infrastructure
         2. Feasability of having large numbers of participants interact with one another in real-time
         3. Language barriers
         4. Latency issues
      2. Misc. challenges (i.e. social, economic)
         1. Personal privacy
            1. Do we really want to make everything we learn visible on the blockchain?
         2. Marketplace competition
         3. Misinformation
   5. What does living this future looks like? (speculative)
      1. Told through the perspective of a teacher onboarding students into this metaverse
         1. Vibes: The Magic School Bus? Hhahahaha
         2. This teacher doesn’t have a traditional background; even if they weren’t professionally licensed as a teacher, their IRL experience + skills made them qualified
      2. They get started with creating their identity. Thanks to wallets, they have their own profile and inventory
         1. This is a dynamic resume: everything you learn is shown on-chain
         2. This is a passport to web3 applications; whether it’s through consumption, curation, publication, or investing, it’ll show your online travels
      3. How to build identity: students are able to explore by completing quests/bounties that interest them, and getting rewarded
      4. The teacher transports them to an introductory quest (that they designed themselves), an immersive environment where they do a Giant Tower Building Challenge, where they have to build the tallest freestanding structure
      5. This experience introduces them to collaboration, and how the metaverse is driven by community-driven culture
         1. DAOs acting like guilds, onboarding new students and helping them level up in this game
         2. Free/open-source syllabi
            1. Anyone can contribute materials and get rewarded
            2. Everyone’s always remixing…building on each other’s works
               1. Info overload + quality control is a problem…curators are elevated, can also become teachers
      6. All students get a POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) for completing onboarding!
      7. Ends on a hopeful note? Maybe the teacher saying how they’re excited to see their students’ journeys of lifelong learning? ahhaha

“You’ll find the future wherever people are having the most fun.” — Steven Johnson, Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World

As a kid who grew up on the Internet, creating was a way of living. I remember spending hours telling stories online, whether it be through drawing fanart or roleplaying fantasies. It got to the point when my mother enforced a limit, worried that I was getting addicted to the computer. Now, I’ve found myself being gifted various opportunities (e.g. a prestigious scholarship, international freelance gigs, exciting Web3 projects) thanks to being well-versed in design, art, and writing: these are skills that I primarily gained not through sitting in school, but through having fun online.

Around me, I see kids growing up the same way. At one end, there are developers learning programming through creation games like Roblox and Minecraft. At another, there are artists cultivating their craft in fandom communities on Twitter and Discord. I believe that these kids aren’t just making their own futures, but the world’s as well; investor Chris Dixon says that these present-day hobbies will seed future industries. Today’s youth will be tomorrow’s innovators.

So why aren’t these hobbies taken seriously? It’s because schools are still seen as the main venue of a person’s development. However, there’s more to learning than what can be found in school. In this essay, I’ll be talking about how schools block students’ growth, how existing online spaces make up for this, and how a giant game could become the best classroom for all of us.

Our educational institutions are designed to benefit the system, not the student. They are influenced by what sociologist George Ritzer calls “McDonaldization”, where principles of the fast food industry, driven by “rationality,” dominate other sectors of society. It is expressed through four characteristics: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. Efficiency is seen in grouping students by age and replacing teachers with online lessons. Calculability is seen in ridiculous class sizes and high stakes testing. Predictability is seen in standardized curriculums and overreliance on lecture slides. Control is seen in automatic grading and using fear as incentive.

To summarize, here’s a statement from educator Shelley Wright: “McDonaldization attempts to wipe out any of the messiness or inefficiencies of learning. Instead, it attempts to reduce it to a commodity that can be packaged, marketed and sold. Rather than cultivating a deep, holistic love of learning that touches every aspect of a student’s life, learning has been reduced to an assembly line. In reality, we’ve imposed a mechanistic view of life onto how people learn, which is largely an organic process, and at a great cost.”

So how do virtual spaces — like video games and online communities — serve them? In “Video Games are the Future of Education”, Nabeel Qureshi gives multiple conclusions.

One, they give students the environment and tools to make discoveries themselves. This is because they provide space, time, and autonomy, which enables students to choose what they learn and how they learn it. Schools cannot provide this level of freedom. That’s why kids remember what they encounter through engaging in these spaces, and forget what is taught to them in classes. They need to feel like it’s just play.

Two, these spaces provide deep understanding of subjects. This is because they simulate reality and provide fast feedback loops, thanks to innovative features like immersive environments and real-time communication. Outputs are tangible to students, and directly related to the skills they learn (e.g. Git repositories to code, published pieces to art); this applies to the response their works get as well (e.g. comments, metrics). Compare this to the typical school experience, which is quite shallow; when you’re focused on memorizing information just to pass exams, you don’t have the capacity to dive deep into a topic.

In short, virtual spaces are optimal learning environments because they provide additional context and creative freedom. Aside from this, they bring together people with diverse ideas and interests since there are no barriers of physical location. This allows for a more equitable and effective distribution of knowledge, skills, and information. All of this is empowering for students. However, these spaces are still capable of exploiting or underserving the youth, just like in traditional education.

One, real life inequality is elevated due to the digital divide. Those who can’t rely on their own devices or connectivity won’t be able to benefit from these spaces as much as people who can. Even worse, these spaces can also bar people financially. In many MMO games, the premium experience (i.e. exclusive items, more user privileges) is reserved for those who can afford a membership. Free members can’t get these unless they work for it (a.k.a. putting in more time for less pay).

Two, most creators don’t get to benefit from their work, since majority of profit goes to the platforms. For example: it is challenging for game developers to make money on Roblox, and the platform profits from people trying. Developers only get a 25 percent cut of revenue, which is one third of the industry standard. If they want to take out their earnings, they must have a premium subscription ($5 a month) and earn a minimum of 100,000 Robux. This disincentivizes them from withdrawing.

Overall, these conditions make it difficult for youth to get value not just from these spaces, but from the work they produce in them. It’s why many parents/guardians aren’t accepting of their kids’ spending so much time online; they see it as a waste of time and money, and are unable to see how it could be beneficial long-term. Imagine how much creators would be enabled if these barriers to participation were removed. How can we tackle these problems? It’s time to get abstract.

To recap: I believe that the youth learn best when they feel like they’re engaging in play; after all, we humans are Homo Ludens — born players. But I don’t necessarily just mean playing video games. I’m talking about the games we play in life.

According to James Carse, there are two types of games: finite, which is played for the purpose of winning, and infinite, which is played for the purpose of continuing play. In our current society, most of us are playing finite games. Online, people aim for getting to the top of the leaderboards, or increasing reach: X amount of followers, likes, shares, etc. Offline, people desire to score the highest salary, or acquiring that prestigious degree. Our existing educational environments encourage this way of thinking: not just schools, but also the online platforms we occupy (e.g. social media). This zero-sum mentality is not healthy to have long-term, especially for creators. No matter what or how much you make, it would never be enough. It’s a recipe for burnout.

What if we approached life as an infinite game? Success doesn’t have to be stressful; in fact, the pursuit of excellence can be a positive-sum game, with no finish line and no losers. According to writer Kevin Kelly, evolution, life, the mind, and the technium (the accumulation of all inventions that humans have ever created) are infinite games. The things in life we love most can be played the same way. How to start: instead of playing within boundaries, play with them. Technologist May-Li Khoe advises: “…instead of thinking of life as a series of checks, see it as a canvas which you can paint anyway you like. the status quo needs to change, and life is short. Thus, we need to joyfully subvert the status quo.”

What attracted me to MMORPG games and art communities were the values they encouraged: creation and collaboration. All people wanted to do was to keep making things and sharing them with others. This wholesome culture changed with the advent of platforms; now, interactions are quantifiable and people are motivated by competition. If we want to make learning feel like play, we need to revive the culture of the early web, so that engaging online feels like an infinite game once again. And I believe that the key to this shift lies in making a whole new web.

The Internet is already the venue for the biggest infinite game ever; investor Packy McCormick calls this the Great Online Game. Here, you play as yourself, and can rack up points, skills, and attributes that can be applied to your online and offline lives. If you continuously provide value without expecting anything in return, you will be rewarded well. This is best seen in social media, where you can make new friends, join exciting projects, and gain unimaginable wealth all just from sharing valuable ideas. Founders, influencers, technologists, and creatives have all found success by playing this game. The best part is that anyone can play this game; it’s free to play, and levelling up is easier since your financial and social capital isn’t tied tightly to real life credentials and connections.

How is this connected to learning? Playing the Great Online Game is the ultimate learning experience. Thanks to the Internet, we’re now entering an age of embedded education, where learning happens everywhere instead of being limited to individual platforms. This means that people learn through encounters they have in systems that may exist for non-educational purposes. For example, see communities centered around SaaS products like Figma and Notion; people teach others how to make the most out of products through shared resources and instructive tutorials.

However, the current state of the web isn’t designed for the new ways we’re playing and learning. This will change; in the future, I believe that embedded education will take on the form of a Metaverse powered by Web3. Here, participants play an (infinite) game that rewards learning by doing. This meta-game would be composed of multiple sub-games, where learning takes many forms: going to events (e.g. lectures, workshops, panels), creating insightful content, taking on job experiences, and working on side projects. Thus, everyone is a lifelong student; why would you want to stop learning when there’s so much opportunities for it? 

Before we can further illustrate this vision, we must first understand the underlying technologies. Why take the form of a Metaverse? What is Web3 anyways, and what does it even mean to be powered by it? To understand this, we need to start with Web1 and Web2.

Web1 is all about consumption. Since the web was still in its early stages of development, most Internet users were readers of static web pages. It was difficult to produce your own web pages since it required both technical literacy and available time. Creativity was still alive though; because of technical constraints, everything was handmade, from website navigation to image placement. No two home pages looked the same.

This changed with the arrival of Web2, which is all about creation. The invention of platforms (i.e. blogging and social media) made it easier to create content; now, anyone can be both consumer and creator. However, it can be argued that some creative power was sacrificed. One, individuality declined. Due to efficiency, users were working inside systems instead of building their own. Two, content is owned by companies operating platforms, not the users who generated all of it. This is the price they pay for using these platforms, along with their personal data.

Thankfully, Web3 is all about ownership. It’s a new version of the Internet where interactions in applications/software are facilitated through wallets — which serve as both verified identities and funding sources. This mechanic decentralizes the web, empowering users to own their content, data, and assets.

Wallets mainly handle cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum; these serve as in-game money for the Great Online Game, rewarding participation. You can gain tokens from supporting your favorite projects/people early (link to ENS airdrop?), along with exchanging value directly (e.g. crowdfunding an essay in ETH). You can also get rewarded for learning with the Learn to Earn (L2E) model, which pays people for performing tasks and learning skills. (Web3, Crypto, and Learning post). For example: on Rabbithole, you can earn crypto by learning about Web3.

Another type of token that can be earned is a Non-Fungible Token (NFT): cryptographic tokens that prove authenticity, ownership, and scarcity of digital assets. NFTs can be applied to any type of digital media: visuals, text, and audio. Right now, they’re best known for being digital artworks, but they have so many use cases: event tickets, advertisements, domains and more. Imagine what they could do for learning!

Overall, Web3 brings the Internet closer to people than ever before. Interactions feel more concrete because digital assets now have physical characteristics; cryptocurrencies act like cash, and NFTs act like real life items. However, due to its complexity, Web3 is in need of an interface that can bring it to its fullest potential. Enter the Metaverse.

The Metaverse can be generally defined as an Internet that brings a sense of place and facilitates rich human connection. We are already living in the early stages of the Metaverse. Encouraged by the pandemic, most of our lives have shifted online: working, talking, shopping, and more; our physical spaces have been replaced by spatial software such as games like Fortnite and platforms like Gather. However, our digital experience is currently scattered across various spaces, making us feel disconnected. Web3 can be the framework that weaves these together into one big cohesive universe. As the ultimate virtual space, the ideal Metaverse would be the perfect environment for embedding education.

This Metaverse would also be the ultimate digital creative tool. In “Computers and Creativity”, designer Molly Mielke discusses how digital creative tools can potentially be co-creators with human beings; they foster innovation by lowering the barrier to entry, making all users toolmakers and owners. In order to do this, the tools need to be interoperable, moldable, efficient, and community-driven: all traits that an ideal Metaverse has. Here’s how the Metaverse can be developed to its fullest potential, especially for education.

Our online experience is scattered because the current state of the Internet is siloed. Since it’s under the control of a few Big Tech companies, the websites users interact with lack connections with one another. This forces users to make several accounts since activities are restricted to single platforms only; for example, this can be seen in the need for multiple social media accounts. Confining one’s activity to the platform it was done on hinders collaboration and limits creativity.

A Web3-powered Metaverse is built for interopability. What this means is that users aren’t restricted to a single platform. Thanks to wallets, everyone has their own inventory (John Palmer); they can bring their data, content, and assets with them wherever they go. Being able to move these into different platforms increases their value, and allows for more collaboration and innovation between people. However, interoperability is only possible through standardization, which ensures compatibility. A great example of this is the open-source movement. Extensive documentation and open liceensing enables a remixing culture where developers are always building upon each other’s creations. Even large Big Tech companies have benefitted from this, since their products are built with the help of open-source code.

Standardization can also be seen in Web3, whose first target audience was developers. For example, the ERC-20 token standard is used for outlining specifications that ensure that tokens function optimally on the Ethereum blockchain (e.g. the total supply, how to transfer tokens, and how transactions are approved). Over 1,000 assets follow this standard, making it one of the core pillars of the blockchain ecosystem (Gemini cryptopedia). The same is being done for the Metaverse. Big Tech companies are sharing their outputs to help grow the ecosystem (e.g. Pixar open sourced the Universal Scene Description file format to help developers create interchangeable 3D data) (Matthew Ball - Interchange, Tools, and Standards). The Open Metaverse Interopability Group is also designing and promoting protocols for integral features like identity, social graphs, inventory, etc.

To summarize, Mielke writes that standardization would fundamentally improve digital creative tools by “…allowing in more collaborators, making space for greater tooling innovation, and expanding a project’s creative constraints beyond any one tool itself.” A Web3-powered Metaverse cannot be built alone; standardization brings both the giant manpower and diverse perspectives needed to bring it to life. Here are some ideas of what standardization can do for an educational metaverse:

• Every player has their own profile. This acts as a dynamic resume, where everything you learn and make is automatically shown on-chain. This also acts as a passport, showing your online travels: consuming, curating, publishing, and investing.
• Everytime you go to an educational experience, you get a badge that is included in your profile. This is made possible through Proof of Attendance Protocols (POAPs), NFTs that serve as reliable records of life experiences.
• Tokens will be used as incentives for learning. Token holders can exchange their tokens for fiat, compensating students/teachers/creators, and for making decisions regarding how the group behind the experience operates.
• Educational materials (i.e. syllabi, playbooks, journals) will be open-sourced. The culture of remixing will persist; these materials will always be open to edits, comments, and updates from the general public.
• In order to tackle problems of information overload and quality control, curators for these materials will be needed more than ever. Profiles will be used to determine if a person has enough experience to become a curator for a certain topic.

Nowadays, in an era of mass-produced software, the way we use most digital tools are dictated by the companies who created them. However, everyone is unique in their thought process. If the tools we use are extensions of ourselves, being forced to adapt to the tool being used is limiting. Ideally, the tools we hse should fit our workflows, and not the other way around (Linus Lee). Thus, the ability for users to tailor their tools to their needs is key for supporting creativity.

Ownership in Web3 enables people’s creativity. Just like with video games, people customize their digital presence through the things they acquire: profile pictures, virtual clothing, ENS domains, and more. The Metaverse gives these digital assets physical characteristics, making them feel more real for people. A virtual land can be a 3D canvas that holds infinite possibilities; it can be an art gallery (Cyber), a theme park (The Sandbox), a shopping district (Republic Realm)…anything you want it to be. Overall, a Web3-powered Metaverse is not just a digital creative tool – it is powerful enough to be a medium for creative expression.

And self-expression is the path to levelling up online. McCormick writes: “… the more you signal who you are and what you care about, the more you open yourself up to new possibilties.” (The Great Online Game) These new possibilities are opportunities (e.g. partnerships, offers, projects) that come because people are attracted to your presence.

The success of digital tools can also be attributed to passionate communities behind them. Web3 and the Metaverse are already cool technologies on their own, but they’re brought to life through the people using them. For instance, see (toolmakers): pioneering users that share their creations and advocate for a tool’s promise; they’re vital for empowering average users, since the toolmakers’ creations inspire average users to mold the tool themselves. Content creators and community builders are good examples of this.

Web3 has especially grown because of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs): mission-driven groups that coordinate through blockchain-enforced rules (Linda Xie). They serve as core infrastructure for the (Great Online Game) by making it easier to connect and collaborate with others online; these same processes would take even longer offline. The tools they use are also made for moldability. Outside of Web3 apps, the tools they prefer the most are the ones that are most customizable, like Discord and Notion. Since DAOs are distributed remotely, many use Metaverse platforms like Gather for cultivating connections. Communities like DAOs that help these tools further innovate themselves.

To summarize, tools like a Web3-powered Metaverse can facilitate creativity by allowing customization and being supported by a collaborative community. Here are some ideas of what moldability can do for an educational metaverse:

• The overall experience for players should feel like a Choose Your Own Adventure. Players customize their character by choosing what they want to acquire, from learned skills to supported works. This may lead to the emergence of different classes; the profile of an artist will look different from a community builder.
• Teachers will become designers. The learning experience they’ll be designing will involve not just content and delivery, but also environment (where are students learning?) and mechanics (what systems/rules do they have to follow?).
• Classrooms as we know them today will be greatly transformed in order to fit a variety of learning styles. (Link to Azlen Ezla designs)
• Depending on the teacher, tokens can represent almost anything that can be tracked with a smart contract: reputation on a social platform, skills of a video game character, etc.
• Learning DAOs will be the new schools. Plug KERNEL by Gitcoin, Crypto Culture Society, and Ethernaut DAO
• DAOs can also act like guilds, onboarding students and helping them level up in this game. There’s a niche for every type of person: artists, developers, gamers, investors, etc.

Thaks to Web2 consumer platforms, it’s easier for everyone to create and share content online. However, when it comes to technical disciplines like programming, the creative process is still complex. The abstract nature of code forces developers to play computer in their head, spending more energy on visualizing the problem instead of working on it themselves (The Coming Software Apocalypse). This barrier is what prevents people from learning technical skills – which are key if one wishes to mold their own part of the Internet.

In order for people to make use of a tool’s moldability, it must be abstracted enough to be accessible. This usually means that its interface must be controlled visually (WYSIWYG) and require no technical knowledge. Thankfully, canvas-based creative tools like interface design software and no-code builders have made it easier to create on the web. Abstraction can also help improve inefficient parts of the creative process. An efficient tool minimizes repetitive work, allowing users to focus on being creative; this is done by simplifying repetitive workflows and accomodating logic.

Web3 enables creativity by making collaborating or coordinating with others much more efficient. This is done through smart contracts, self-executing contracts that have their terms written in code (Investopedia). DAOs are powered by such contracts, which define the group’s rules and hold their treasury; this reduces possibility of conflict that may obstruct the DAO’s desired outcomes. Offering predefined elements is another way to simplify repetitive workflows. In Web3, this is done through composability: the ability of system components to connect to each other, just like Lego pieces (Aragon). The open-source nature of most Web3 projects helps reduce set-up time for other builders, which increases the rate of experimentation and innovation.

However, Web3 is still too complex and confusing for most users. In order to achieve mass adoption, it will need a paradigm-shifting interface. McCormick writes that it will need to (The Interface Phase) “…add order to the…chaos of decentralization, and give obvious and meaningful utility to digital assets…it will need to…hide complexity beneath the surface, and deliver clean experiences. It will need to create a canvas for both developers and users themselves to create the next million new apps.”

As an interface, the Metaverse will be able to do all of this. Its visual nature will reduce friction in Web3 user experience by making abstract concepts feel more concrete. The Metaverse is also an efficient tool itself since it’s considered as infrastructure, making actions like communicating real-time, managing presence, and earning money easier. For sure, creation will become easier as well; the beginnings of this are already being seen in video games.

To summarize, abstraction makes tools fully responsible for executing tedious tasks, which allows people to fully focus on the act of creation. If the Metaverse gives form to Web3, more people will be enabled to make use of this powerful technology. This would help them gain ownership over the web in their own ways. Here are some ideas of what abstraction can do for an educational metaverse:

• Being online should feel as natural as real life. Imagine an immersive 3D world where 2D interfaces are seamlessly integrated. My pegs for this are Google Glass (clean, responsive, and practical HUD interface design) and Somnium Space (blockchain-based multiverse designed for virtual reality).
• No matter what you aim to create, there will be a template for it. This will come from all the open-source works created by others. For example, the Metaverse can come with starting environments for classrooms, social mixers, conferences, etc.
• The data your profile contains can provide suggestions for your learning journey. You can get recommended skills you could learn, quests/experiences you could take on, people you would vibe with, etc.
• Learning will primarily be done through a hands-on approach. Khan Academy already teaches programming like this; in exercises, the left-hand side contains the code while the right-hand side contains the simulation of it. How can this be applied to other subjects? Imagine taking tours back in time for history, governing hypothetical countries for politics, and more.

Overall, the Metaverse makes creating easier for all, which in turn aids the process of learning. Stated well by investor Tina He: “If the purpose of education is to inspire courage to expand our collective understanding of the world, the vision of Embedded Education is that every time we see something that inspires us, the path to actualizing this new-found dream starts right where we find it.” Hopefully, this ease motivates people to learn not because they want to win something, but instead because they truly enjoy it.

The youth are already primed for this future; being immersed in digital worlds helps us transition to virtual systems like Web3. Founder Brian Cho discusses the youth’s advantages.

Concepts like wallets, tokens, and NFTs are intuitive for the youth to understand because of a childhood spent dealing with virtual currencies and goods. They are also already used to working for rewards online, whether it be through grinding for XP or commenting for reputation. This applies to learning too; they are willing to put up with a steep learning curve just to have fun.

Many youths were active participants of gaming guilds and fan forums, so the way DAOs operate is natural for them. For example, take community-led governance. Kids who run Minecraft servers are always thinking about the impact the design of their server has on their players (e.g. making their world free-for-all, punishing those who break the rules, using plugins to prevent damage). At the same time, they’re also learning about soft skills like compromising with others, balancing demands and resolving conflict.

Just like in our current Internet, web3 identities revolve around merit; what you do online is more important than who you are offline. Thus, being anonymous/psuedonymous is not off-putting at all. The way people communicate is affected too. Web2 memes and language (e.g. gamer lingo like gg, ggwp, glhf) has been a huge influence on Web3 memes and language (e.g. gm, gn, wagmi). All of this helps cultivate a sense of connection with strangers all across the globe.

If we want learning in the future to be an infinite game, we must ensure that this Metaverse will be a public good. This means it must have the following characteristics. One, it has to be non-rivalrous, which means that it’s accessible to everyone; a person’s use of the good does not impact its availability to others. Two, it has to be non-excludable, which means that it should be impossible to exclude anybody from using the good.

Our current education system does not fulfill these criteria. Both traditional schools and alternative learning experiences (i.e. fellowships and bootcamps) are inherently rivalrous because the amount of students is inversely correlated with the quality of interactions. Factors like cost, time, and literacy can also exclude others from getting educated.

An open Metaverse would make education more accessible. Video games like Minecraft and Fortnite have served as engaging educational platforms, teaching thousands of kids all over the world; imagine all the possibilities if these games worked together. However, if companies like Meta are allowed to take control of this space, the Metaverse will become closed. The extractive systems of web2 that value profits over people would be revived – hurting young creators all over again. (Rabbithole thread)

This Metaverse must also be intentionally designed, just like games too. However, we must be wary of gamification; it usually becomes pointsification, which is all about external motivation. Examples of this are mechanics like points, badges, and leaderboards: signifiers of finite games. Educator Ana Lorena Fabrega says that games are at their best when people play them out of genuine interest. Same should apply to this Metaverse; people should be playing not because they want to be rewarded, but because they simply enjoy it. In order to design a game like this, Fabrega states the need for the following criteria.

First, a goal/specific outcome that provides players with a sense of purpose. The overarching goal for this Metaverse would be providing value; whatever you learn should be used to help other people learn too. This goal could be interpreted in various ways by DAOs, which could write their own manifestos. What would a Sustainable Development Goals look like in this new digital realm?

Next, rules that place limitations on how players can achieve their goal. Examples of rules could be game mechanics and Codes of Conduct. These ensure that players have an enjoyable experience. Without rules, players may be confused on what to do, take shortcuts that defeat the game’s purpose, or offend fellow players.

Then, a feedback system that tells players how close they are to achieving their goal. Feedback is mainly sourced from fellow players. From an audience’s responses, one is able to tell from their actions what’s working and what’s not. They must also be careful of favoring quantifiable metrics; views and likes may not compare to genuine conversations.

Finally, voluntary participation. It’s not a game if people don’t know that they’re playing. Consent isn’t just agreeing to play, but also having full knowledge of the game. This can be done through web3 wallet transactions, which must always be signed before being processed. The problem is conveying all necessary information (i.e. objectives, rules) clearly without becoming an typical Terms and Conditions.

I see these criteria being applied to both the sub-games that serve as learning opportunities (e.g. joining hackathons) and the meta-game itself a.k.a. the Metaverse.

The main problem barring the creation of this Metaverse concerns technology: the Internet’s current infrastructure is not developed enough to support this grand vision. Both Web3 and Metaverse (i.e. AR, XR, VR) technologies are still in their early stages, so only a privileged few can benefit from using them. But before the Metaverse can be introduced to all, there are big social and economic challenges that need to be tackled.

One, personal privacy. Do we really want to make everything we learn and make visible on the blockchain? Both “successes” and “failures” would be shown (i.e. mastering the Solidity language v.s. initiating an unprofitable NFT project). How can we encourage failure and growth without it being detrimental to one’s prospects? If we aren’t careful, this may lead to a personal branding similar to Linkedin culture, only where people are afraid of getting involved with projects that may hurt their resume.

Two, marketplace competition. In the perspective of most companies (especially Big Tech), it’s more beneficial to create their own walled gardens versus collaborating with others. This is what leads them to build proprietary products from open source software and steal features from one another (e.g. Snapchat’s stories). How can we incentivize working together in order to build an interopable Metaverse? I find hope in the culture of Web3, where collaboration is the norm; there are always projects seeking collaborators and DAOs open for partnerships.

Three, misinformation. Many people are skeptical or against Web3 due to concerns like hyperfinancialization and environmental impact. It doesn’t help that the language of Web3 isn’t beginner-friendly, or that the space is filled with scammers. We must tackle these concerns so that more people (not just the highly privileged) can feel ready enough to become participants.

The ways we’re learning and creating are no longer serving us; both traditional schools and Web2 platforms take more value from people instead of giving it to them. A better future lies in game-like technologies like Web3 and the Metaverse, which the youth caught on to first because of a childhood spent immersed in virtual spaces. These same youth will be the innovators who’ll be making this future a reality.

However, this is only possible because virtual spaces (i.e. games, communities) were open to these youth, being both accessible and engaging. We need to ensure that a Web3-powered Metaverse will be the same. If it’s closed off to all but a select few, we’d be closing off potential creators who hold new possibilities for human innovation.

If life is a game, we all want to level up. We choose the type of game we want to play. Do you want to upgrade only yourself, or also help upgrade our world? Your success is up to you.

• we are now living in a metaverse paragraph
• back with web3? (no need to describe in detail; can be expounded in later sections)
• the ultimate digital creative tool

https://ed3.mirror.xyz/0U3QG8-4K6CD_ltU6SJyKN3-uBD3x6nEFs-YeShzYmk good intro to ed3

Web3 refers to the decentralized ecosystem of technology to support the next generation of virtual engagement.

Web3 enables individual users to make decisions about their online activity without having to compromise utility.

In ed3, learners own their education - validating their knowledge with decentralized technology in contrast to previous models.

• Ed1 was knowledge transfer provided by accredited institutions, such as universities and high schools
• Ed2 was centralized platforms distributing education, such as Udemy, Skillshare, and Outschool
• Ed3 is individuals gathering skills from a variety of sources and validating that knowledge in their own wallet.

What if… every player could have their own profile? Right now, we have multiple social media accounts because the applications we use aren’t connected to one another; this confines one’s activity to the platform it was done on. A Web3-powered Metaverse is built for interoperability, freeing users from being restricted to platforms. Thanks to wallets, everyone can have their own inventory, enabling them to bring their data, content, and assets with them wherever they go. These inventories are the basis of profiles. They can act as dynamic resumes/passports, where everything you learn and make is automatically shown on-chain.

For instance, you could get a badge for every educational experience you’ve attended. This is made possible through Proof of Attendance Protocols (POAPs), NFTs that serve as reliable records of life experiences. Experiments like Free Learn and LABEL have been exploring this. Imagine also earning tokens for learning. As a token holder, you’d be able to exchange your tokens for fiat, compensate students/teachers/creators, and make decisions regarding how the group behind the experience operates. For instance, learners in Crypto, Culture, & Society (liberal arts education for crypto) use their tokens for voting on the syllabus, scholarships, guests, etc.

What if…we could co-create our classrooms? Interoperability is only possible through standardization, which ensures compatibility. The open-source movement does this well; extensive documentation and open licensing enables a remixing culture where developers are always building upon each other’s creations. Standards are already being created for our potential learning environment. For example, over 1,000 assets in the Ethereum ecosystem follow the ERC-20 token standard; meanwhile, the Metaverse ecosystem is being built by both Big Tech companies and volunteer groups (e.g. Pixar open sourcing the Universal Scene Description file format; The Open Metaverse Interoperability Group designing protocols for integral features like identity, social graphs, inventory, etc.).

Imagine also collaboratively creating our curricula. Educational materials (i.e. syllabi, playbooks, journals) would be open-sourced. The culture of remixing will still persist; these materials will always be open to edits, comments, and updates from the general public. In order to tackle problems of information overload and quality control, curators for these materials will be needed more than ever. Profiles can be used to determine if a person has enough experience to become a curator for a certain topic.

To summarize, Mielke writes that standardization would fundamentally improve digital creative tools by "…allowing in more collaborators, making space for greater tooling innovation, and expanding a project’s creative constraints beyond any one tool itself." A Web3-powered Metaverse cannot be built alone; standardization brings both the giant manpower and diverse perspectives needed to bring it to life.

What if…learning was like a Choose Your Own Adventure? Players could customize their character by choosing what they want to acquire, from learned skills to supported works. This may lead to the emergence of different classes; the profile of an artist will look different from a community builder. Self-expression is the path to levelling up online; McCormick writes: "… the more you signal who you are and what you care about, the more you open yourself up to new possibilities." These new possibilities are opportunities (e.g. partnerships, offers, projects) that come because people are attracted to your presence.

If we could design our own profiles, what if we could also design our learning experience? Nowadays, in an era of mass-produced software, our workflows are dictated by the tools we use. However, everyone is unique in their thought process. A Web3-powered Metaverse acknowledges this by enabling us to own the ways we learn and create. We’re already used to customizing our digital presence, whether it’s through the profile pictures we use or the personal websites we make. So why can’t we have this for our digital experiences as well?

It’s difficult to learn how to fully customize our experiences without being exposed to how others mold them. Enter toolmakers: pioneering users that share their creations and advocate for a tool’s promise. They’re vital for empowering average users, since the toolmakers’ creations inspire average users to mold the tool themselves. Content creators and community builders are good examples of this; in their own way, they’re also teachers, bringing the best out of their audiences.

Thus, the teachers of the future will be full-fledged designers. They’ll be designing not just content and delivery, but also environment (where are students learning?) and mechanics (what systems/rules do they have to follow?). In the Metaverse, the forms a classroom can take are endless: an art gallery, a theme park, a shopping district…anything you want it to be. With more people from diverse backgrounds becoming teachers, classrooms will be greatly transformed in order to fit a variety of learning styles. See Azlen Elza’s classroom design explorations. Teachers could also incorporate tokens into the learning experience; these can track almost anything that can be tracked with a smart contract (e.g. reputation on a social platform, skills of a video game character). Imagine all the possible ways learning could happen.

What if…learning was like a multiplayer game? As seen with toolmakers, passionate communities are vital to the learning experiences of game & SaaS platforms; imagine Minecraft without its creative builders or Notion without its productivity nerds. Navigating your own education is difficult without having guides and peers supporting you. In a Web3-powered Metaverse, communities would come in the form of DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs): mission-driven groups that coordinate through blockchain-enforced rules (Linda Xie). This structure enables learners and educators alike to collaboratively steward their education.

DAOs could act as guilds, onboarding newbies and helping them level up in this game. A niche exists for every type of person: artists, developers, gamers, investors, etc., and students could choose what best suits their adventure. Membership is signified with an NFT on their profile, which in turn gives them access to the guild’s content and community. Students grow by acquiring experience points and tokens through completing learning bounties or sharing knowledge with others.

Overall, a Web3-powered Metaverse is not just a digital creative tool – it is powerful enough to be a medium for creative expression. This is because of customization and the support of collaborative communities. This educational platform cannot serve everyone if it cannot adapt to anyone’s needs.

What if…learning was truly hands-on? In order to enable more people’s creativity online, the technical work required of them must be abstracted. Enaging with technology is still too complex and confusing because it still requires a ton of cognitive effort, whether you’re an everyday user or an experienced developer. This can be seen in learning Web3, where transactions must be understood before being approved, and programming, where the problem must be visualized before working on it. As the most immersive learning environment, a Web3-powered Metaverse would take on the burden of comprehension by making abstract concepts feel more concrete, leaving learners to focus on critical thinking. At the same time, it would encourage them to have fun, making the steep learning curve less excruciating.

This is why games are the new classrooms. For instance, see “programming by demonstration”. Khan Academy already teaches like this; in their exercises, the left-hand side contains the code while the right-hand side contains the simulation of it. The Metaverse would upgrade this simulation, turning outputs on a screen to a whole world you can interact with, like Minecraft. It encourages computational thinking in kids through their advanced elements, like redstone and command blocks. This can also be done for investing in crypto and NFTs. Why read instructional modules when you can experience trading instead? You can do this in Curious Addy’s Trading Club, where players can simulate trading cryptocurrencies and NFTs risk-free. Imagine learning other subjects through games too!

What if…you didn’t have to start from scratch? Abstraction also improves inefficient parts of the creative process by simplifying repetitive workflows and accommodating logic. Offering predefined elements is one way to increase efficiency. This is done in Web3 through composability: the ability of system components to connect to each other, just like Lego pieces; the open-source nature of most projects helps reduce set-up time for other builders, increasing the rate of experimentation and innovation.

When put together, building blocks form foundational structures. A Web3-powered Metaverse serves as an infrastructure, making learning and creating more efficient. Here, teachers could find a template for any learning experience they want to create; imagine starting environments for classrooms, social mixers, conferences, etc. These would come from open-source works provided by other creators. This also applies to designing your own learning journey. The data your profile contains can recommend skills you could learn, quests/experiences you could take on, people you would vibe with, etc.

Aside from learning and creating, the application process must also be improved; this is currently broken for both schools and workplaces, which are places for learning. Profiles, interviews, and references aren’t indicative of one’s performance; they also take a lot of effort, whether you’re the applicant or the evaluator. One startup tackling this problem is Station, which describes itself as building “on-chain infrastructure for onboarding & coordinating contributors of the future.” DAOs have their own terminals, which feature all their initiatives; each initiative has information on required commitment, reward(s) for contribution, recommended skills, etc. After someone applies to an initiative, they can get endorsed by existing contributors.

To summarize, abstraction makes tools fully responsible for executing tedious tasks, which allows people to fully focus on learning and creating. If the Metaverse gives form to Web3, more people will be enabled to make use of this powerful technology. This would help them gain ownership over the web in their own ways.

• everyday magic
  • good software creates agency through malleable systems, playful environments, fast feedback loops, and data interopability
    • malleable systems (abstraction?)
      • providing building blocks
      • more approachable than forcing ppl into rigid flows
      • enables moldability
    • playful environments (moldability?)
      • learning curve is steep, so it must be fun instead of excruciating
      • solve boring utilitarian needs by embedding fun into the core experience, rewarding experimentation and learning through doing.
    • fast feedback loops (abstractionl)
      • delayd can derail creative desire
      • requirements: responsive to updating on changes and streamlining complexty
      • E.G. no-code
    • interoperability (standradization)
      • Interoperability refers to the ability to transfer data between apps seamlessly. Practically, this means having easy and comprehensive flows for importing and exporting data into and out of other apps.
      • In a world of fully interoperable software, new apps can have immediate value because individuals can bring data in from existing apps. This immediate access eliminates the moat that incumbent software has over new creations—multiplying the effectiveness of individual agency by giving full control over produced data.
  • In the context of software, agency comes down to whether someone feels in control and powerful when they’re using a piece of software, rather than coerced and scared. It’s the difference between wanting to continue exploring rather than dreading continued use.
  • Agency shifts the balance of power—from corporations and startups to everyday communities and neighbors. In the ideal world, individuals would not only have the power to reject agency-deficient and agency-depriving environments, like those with dark design patterns, misaligned profit models, and pyramid scheme-esque incentives; they will also be responsible for using that power towards a future they want to see.

Our learning is often defined by our environment: the invisible hand that shapes our behavior. In line with this, the best learning environments are enabling environments; according to researcher Andy Matuschak, these significantly expand its participants’ capacity to do things they find meaningful and important. To do this, the activities they provide must directly serve an intrinsically meaningful purpose. When participants are fuelled by an intense personal connection to a subject, they’ll naturally partake in effortful engagement, which naturally leads to deep understanding. These activities must also focus on action. Compare reading about a sport versus actually playing the sport; the more isolated participants are from the action, the less likely they are to be enabled by their environment. Overall, an enabling environment enables its participants by creating opportunities for personal growth and highlighting bridges to opportunities for action based on that growth.

Schools aspire to do this, but often fall short; this is because their primary purpose is knowledge/skill development, which isn’t intrinsically meaningful on its own. Because of this, students depend on teachers not only for expertise but also for purpose. This dependence hinders the cultivation of an intense personal connection, making it less likely for the students to develop a deep understanding of a subject. Meanwhile, great software environments are better enabling environments for youth because they empower them in pursuing their passions (e.g. expanding range of artistic expression, distributing to millions with zero marginal cost).

Matuschak clarifies that most games aren’t enabling environments. Even if they’re effective at developing knowledge/skills, they rarely expand players’ capacity in doing things they find meaningful and important, since the primary purpose of most games is to create an aesthetic/emotional experience. However, there are a few that still count; Minecraft’s creative mode enables serious creative expression, while the structured social environments of massively-multiplayer online games enable interpersonal connection and community formation. These types of games, alongside great software environments, are the new schools of today’s youth.

I believe that the youth learn best when they feel like they’re engaging in play; after all, we humans are Homo Ludens — born players. But I don’t necessarily just mean playing video games. I’m talking about the games we play in life. According to writer James Carse, there are two types of games: finite, which is played for the purpose of winning, and infinite, which is played for the purpose of continuing play. Even if infinite games are best for learning, most of our educational environments are designed as finite games. Offline, we’re optimizing for name-brand schools and 4.0 GPAs; online, we’re grinding for topping leaderboards and increasing our reach. What if we approached education as an infinite game?

The Internet already serves as the venue for the biggest infinite game ever: The Great Online Game. Coined by investor Packy McCormick, this is a game where you play as yourself, racking up points, skills, and attributes that can be applied to your online and offline lives. Levelling up here is simple: the more you provide value (without expecting anything in return), the more you’ll be rewarded. The best part is that anyone can play this game; it’s nearly free to play, and leveling up is easier since your financial and social capital isn’t tightly tied to real life credentials and connections. Playing this game is the ultimate way to experience learning by doing.

People have always been learning this way, but thanks to the Internet, this approach has been given the spotlight it deserves. We’ve arrived at an age of embedded education, where learning happens everywhere instead of being limited to individual platforms. Now, people are learning through encounters they have in systems that may have been created for non-educational purposes. On one hand, it looks like teenage girls learning about HTML/CSS and feminism on Tumblr; on the other, it looks like productivity nerds creating resources and tutorials for Notion.

However, the current state of the web isn’t designed for the new ways we’re learning. This must change; in the future, I believe that the future of education will look like an infinite game that rewards learning by doing. This meta-game might be composed of multiple sub-games, where learning takes many forms: going to events (e.g. lectures, workshops, panels), creating insightful content, taking on job experiences, and working on side projects. Thus, everyone becomes a lifelong student; why would you want to stop learning when there are so many opportunities for it?

I believe that a Metaverse powered by Web3 has the potential to bring this vision to life; however, if we’re not careful, it can easily fall into the same traps of modern education. In this essay, I’ll be illustrating what this vision looks like, and how we can design this intentionally.

This future is defined by freedom; people would be free to choose what they learn and how they learn it. This may only be achievable on an open web: one that is by and for all of its users, not select figures or institutions. A closed web is an unequitable world for education; only a few people will have access to opportunities for their personal growth. Together, Web3 and the Metaverse have the potential to open the internet to all.

An open internet indicates that everyone gets to have ownership over it, and Web3 is the infrastructure that enables this. It’s a new vision for the Internet where interactions in applications/software are facilitated through wallets; these replace accounts by serving as both verified identities and funding sources.  This mechanic decentralizes the web, empowering users to own their content, data, and assets. This frees them from being shackled to any given platform (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). By making platforms obsolete, Web3 disincentivizes the creation of finite games; clout-chasing and wealth-creation no longer seems appealing when it’s limited to a single platform.

Web3 is reshaping education into Ed3, where learners own their education; instead of relying on accredited institutions and centralized distributors (e.g. universities and Udemy), they get to gather skills from a variety of sources and validate this knowledge in their own wallets. Decentralized technology can help education solve its challenges with access, affordability, and accreditation. Learners will no longer be inhibited by their time, location, and money; the credentials they gain will not just serve as signalling, but actually guarantee competency.

In short, Web3 empowers people to own their digital identities; this in turn enables them to own their education. However, Web3 is still too complex and confusing for the typical learner. It can’t be navigated without a high degree of technical literacy. In order to make this accessible to all, this infrastructure needs a paradigm-shifting interface. McCormick writes that it needs to "…add order to the…chaos of decentralization, and give obvious and meaningful utility to digital assets…it will need to…hide complexity beneath the surface, and deliver clean experiences. It will need to create a canvas for both developers and users themselves to create the next million new apps."Basically: what interface is capable of enabling people to freely navigate Web3? Enter the Metaverse.

At the same time, the Metaverse also unlocks the value of Web3. Web3 excels at giving digital assets physical characteristics (e.g. cryptocurrencies behaving like cash, NFTs behaving like physical items); the Metaverse doubles down on this, portraying the internet as a tapestry of rich, immersive environments. This visual experience abstracts away Web3’s complexity, helping people truly understand and utilize the power of ownership.

As the ultimate virtual space, the ideal Metaverse would be the perfect environment for embedding education. Its immersive nature enables learning by doing. Platform-native encounters shorten the feedback loop from theory to practice, which helps people deeply internalize their learnings. This is characteristic of an enabling environment; reading about anatomy can’t compare to doing virtual surgery. The Metaverse would also help make education more accessible. Knowledge and information have often been gatekept by platforms and institutions. To tackle this problem, embedded education aims to redistribute and embed these into our everyday experience. We’re already familiar with the Internet, thinking of it as a place; why not see it as one big university too? An open metaverse could be the new school campus.

To summarize: if Web3 enables people to own their education, the Metaverse encourages them to deeply engage with it. It does this by freeing people from Web3’s complexity and connecting them with like-minded learners.

Modern youth are already primed for this future; being immersed in digital worlds helps us transition to virtual systems like Web3. Founder Brian Cho discusses their advantages:

• (Value) creation/contribution:
• Community:
• Culture:

Currently, it’s difficult to see the potential these technologies hold because most mainstream use cases seem frivolous: from collecting expensive animal JPEGs to playing in clunky 3D worlds. However, the next big thing in technology often looks like a toy. This was the case with the Internet. It was initially dismissed by others; but after improving over time (i.e. lower cost, better UX), it was able to achieve widespread adoption to the point that it entrenches our daily lives. I believe a Web3-powered Metaverse is on this same path. But we still need to ensure that it’s on the right track.

If the future of education looks like a game, then it must also be a digital creative tool. In “Computers and Creativity”, designer Molly Mielke discusses how digital creative tools can potentially be co-creators with human beings; they foster innovation by lowering the barrier to entry, making all users toolmakers and owners. Cultivating human creativity and collaboration should also be the aspiration of an ideal education. How can this purpose be tackled by the technologies we have at our disposal? Mielke names three core concepts, which I’ll apply to education:

1. Educational technology must be standardized. Mielke writes that standardization would fundamentally improve digital creative tools by "…allowing in more collaborators, making space for greater tooling innovation, and expanding a project’s creative constraints beyond any one tool itself." The future of education cannot be built alone; standardization brings both the giant manpower and diverse perspectives needed to bring it to life.
2. Educational technology must be moldable. It shouldn’t just be a digital creative tool — it must be powerful enough to be a medium for creative expression. This can be done through providing learners options for customization and support from collaborative communities. The future of education cannot serve everyone if it cannot adapt to anyone’s needs.
3. Educational technology must be abstracted. By being fully responsible for executing tedious tasks, it’ll allow learners to fully focus on creativity and play. The future of education cannot only target an enlightened few; for maximum accessibility, it must be hands-on, comprehensible, and participatory.

Overall, in order to bring out learners’ full potential, educational technology must be interoperable, moldable, efficient, and community-driven. These are all traits that a Web3-powered Metaverse has. Here’s how I see this being developed to its fullest potential, especially for education.

In this Game, learning is hands-on. If one’s objective is to master a topic, they can only prove this competency through practical experience. Currently, learners struggle to gain technical skills because the gap between theory and practice is too wide; whether you’re an everyday user or an experienced developer, engaging (and building) with technology requires a ton of cognitive effort. This can be seen in learning Web3, where transactions must be understood before being approved, and programming, where the problem must be visualized before working on it. The Game takes on the burden of comprehension by making abstract concepts feel more concrete, leaving learners to focus on critical thinking. At the same time, it would encourage them to have fun, making the steep learning curve less excruciating.

Let’s apply this to “programming by demonstration”. Khan Academy already teaches like this; in their exercises, the left-hand side contains the code while the right-hand side contains the simulation of it. The Game would upgrade this simulation, turning outputs on a screen to a whole world you can interact with, like Minecraft; it encourages computational thinking in kids through their advanced elements, like redstone and command blocks. Another example is investing in crypto and NFTs: a wealth-building skill that anyone can benefit from. Why read instructional modules when you can experience trading instead? You can do this in Curious Addy’s Trading Club, where players can simulate trading cryptocurrencies and NFTs risk-free. Imagine learning other subjects through games too!

In this Game, you can Choose Your Own Adventure. The only requirement for leveling up is practical experience, but it’s up to the player to decide how they’ll gain this experience. So they customize themselves by choosing what they want to acquire, from learned skills to supported works. This is all shown on their own profile. Wallets could serve as the basis of profiles because they enable everyone to have their own inventory; learners could bring their creations and credentials to whatever platform they go to. Thus, a profile can act as a dynamic resume/passport, where everything you learn and make is automatically shown on-chain.

For instance, you could get a badge for every educational experience you’ve attended. This is made possible through Proof of Attendance Protocols (POAPs), NFTs that serve as reliable records of life experiences. Imagine also earning tokens for learning. As a token holder, you’d be able to exchange your tokens for fiat, compensate students/teachers/creators, and make decisions regarding how the group behind the experience operates. For instance, learners in Crypto, Culture, & Society (liberal arts education for crypto) use their tokens for voting on the syllabus, scholarships, guests, etc. Thanks to badges and tokens, passive students become active stakeholders. By helping scale their learning platform, they increase the value of its knowledge; this impact shows on their profile, which helps in leveling up.

Profiles may lead to the emergence of different classes; the profile of an artist will look different from a community builder. Self-expression is the path to leveling up online; McCormick writes: "… the more you signal who you are and what you care about, the more you open yourself up to new possibilities." These new possibilities are opportunities (e.g. partnerships, offers, projects) that come because people are attracted to your presence. By cultivating your profile, you’re designing your own learning experience. Nowadays, we don’t have control over this; in an era of mass-produced software, our workflows are dictated by the tools we use. The Game acknowledges our unique thought processes by enabling us to own the ways we learn and create.

In line with this, the teachers of this Game will be full-fledged designers. They’ll be designing not just content and delivery, but also environment (where are students learning?) and mechanics (what systems/rules do they have to follow?). In the Metaverse, the forms a classroom can take are endless: an art gallery, a theme park, a shopping district…anything you want it to be. With more people from diverse backgrounds becoming teachers, classrooms will be greatly transformed in order to fit a variety of learning styles (see Azlen Elza’s classroom design explorations).

Teachers could also incorporate tokens into the learning experience; these can track almost anything that can be tracked with a smart contract (e.g. reputation on a social platform, skills of a video game character). They could apply this to scaffolded learning: the gradual decrease of support for learners as they increase their understanding. For example, learning opportunities could come in the form of quests and bounties; teachers could choose to offer these for specified difficulty levels (e.g. # of XP in skill), and adjust rewards for these accordingly. Imagine all the possible ways learning could happen in this Game.

It’s difficult to learn how to fully customize your education without being exposed to how others mold their own. This is where teachers come in; they act as toolmakers: pioneering users that share their creations and advocate for a tool’s promise. No matter what form they come in (e.g. content creators, community builders), they empower learners by inspiring them to mold their education themselves. But how does one become a teacher in the first place? This isn’t just the result of gaining experience; it happens by engaging with a community. After all, what is a teacher without their students? In this Game, you can’t level up without playing with others.

Notes:

• put more contrasts: how is suggested innovation better than what currently exists?
• why is molding important to education?

In the future, learning will be a multiplayer game. As seen with toolmakers, passionate communities are vital to the learning experiences of gaming and SaaS platforms; imagine Minecraft without its creative builders or Notion without its productivity nerds. Navigating your own education is difficult without having guides and peers supporting you. Thus, it’s vital that one’s learning experience has a social component; this can take any form, from casual cohorts to intense accelerators. In this Game, choosing your own adventure involves choosing your party — the people you’re learning with.

In a Web3-powered Metaverse, communities would look like DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs): mission-driven groups that coordinate through blockchain-enforced rules. This structure enables learners and educators alike to collaboratively steward their education. DAOs could act as guilds, onboarding newbies and helping them level up in this game. A niche could exist for every type of person: artists, developers, gamers, investors, etc., and students could choose what best suits their adventure. Membership would be signified with an NFT on their profile, which would give them access to the guild’s content and community. Students would grow by acquiring experience points and tokens through completing learning bounties or sharing knowledge with others.

In this Game, we can co-create our classrooms. The future of education can learn a lot from the open-source movement’s remixing culture, where people are always building upon each other’s creations. This is made possible through open standards, which ensure compatibility (e.g. extensive documentation and free licensing). Creativity also thrives because of an efficient development process (i.e. less time spent on repetitive workflows). One way to increase efficiency is by offering predefined elements. Many open-source projects serve as frameworks for builders, helping them reduce set-up time; this increases the rate of experimentation and innovation.

When put together, building blocks form foundational structures. The Game would serve as an infrastructure for learning and creating so that learners wouldn’t have to start from scratch. For example, designing your own learning journey: the data your profile contains can recommend skills you could learn, quests/experiences you could take on, people you would vibe with, etc. Teachers can benefit too; they could find a template for any learning experience they want to create. Imagine starting environments for classrooms, social mixers, conferences, etc. These would come from open-source works provided by other creators. Imagine also collaboratively creating curricula. Educational materials (i.e. syllabi, playbooks, journals) would be open-sourced. The culture of remixing will still persist; these materials will always be open to edits, comments, and updates from the general public.

One problem that can arise from enabling co-creation is attribution and compensation for creators. Whether you’re developing open-source software or writing free syllabi, it’s difficult to get valued for your work. This is known as the free-rider problem: why would someone pay for your project when they can enjoy it for free? Web3 tackles this by providing mechanisms that ensure the recognition of creators. One example is ENS domains: usernames that creators can use across services. Another example is Quadratic Funding: a mathematically optimal model that prioritizes projects based on how many people contributed; this encourages people to make contributions (no matter how small they are) since it’s ensured that funds will be democratically allocated in a way that benefits the public. Gitcoin Grants, a Web3-native Kickstarter, uses this for model funding public goods projects. Other problems that can arise are information overload and quality control. In order to tackle these, curators for these materials will be needed more than ever. Profiles can be used to determine if a person has enough experience to become a curator for a certain topic.

However, before a learner can start getting involved in a community/project, it’s likely that they’d have to go through an application process. This is currently broken for typical places for learning, like schools and workplaces. Profiles, interviews, and references aren’t indicative of one’s performance; they also take a lot of effort, whether you’re the applicant or the evaluator. If this Game is an adventure, then finding your fellow players should be easier. Players could look for the guild/s that suit them by exploring a map, which can be filtered depending on one’s interests. Each guild would have its own quest board, which explicitly state what they’re looking for; players could determine if they’re a fit by matching their profiles to available quests.

One Web3 startup working on this solution is Station, which is building “on-chain infrastructure for onboarding & coordinating contributors of the future.” DAOs have their own terminals, which feature all their initiatives; each initiative has information on required commitment, reward(s) for contribution, recommended skills, etc. After someone applies to an initiative, they can get endorsed by existing contributors. I’m excited for the network that’ll emerge on Station. It’ll not only help develop an ecosystem that enables connection, but also the future of profiles: one’s relationships, reputation, and identity would be represented through the on-chain contribution and relational data accrued on the platform.

By enabling co-creation, the Game shows learners that they have the power to create their own universe. A major inspiration for this vision is Loot Project, the first community-owned NFT gaming platform. It started out as loot bags: NFTs that only consisted of 8 phrases, which depicted “randomized adventurer gear”. The community built on top of this, creating everything from visual renditions of their gear to complex systems they can play in (e.g. levelling infrasturcture, society and politics). This project is why I’m a believer in Web3-powered Metaverse, showing its potential in community creation, storytelling, and world-building. This is kind of environment that best fosters learning.

Overall, this Game is all about owning our education. The more people benefit from our learning experiences — from designing for yourself to designing for others, the more we level up. We’re playing an infinite game where school never ends; we’ll always be students and teachers, learning from each other. Together, we can take on our main quest: creating a world where everyone is free to flourish.

If life is a game, we all want to level up. We choose the type of game we want to play. But for too long, we’ve been playing finite games. We’ve played by the rules set by our environments, assuming that winning is the only path we can take. Now, in an technological era that encourages participation and ownership, we’re starting to realize that we are free to simply play. And instead of playing against others, we can play together. So do you want to upgrade only yourself, or also help upgrade our world? Your success is up to you.