Please describe your proposed solution.
The PBL (project based learning) approach is an effective hands on learning experience that focuses on -learning by doing- action-taking participation - an efficient way for a lasting learning experience - enabling practitioners a direct application of what has been learned.
James has been started to develop those concepts for the Cardano community since July 2020 and successfully implemented:
a. Gimbalabs Playground: this is a weekly meeting format, where community and (not-yet community) members can share ideas, present a project and obtain multi-peer feedback.
b. Project Based Learning series: piloting "Plutus Project-Based Learning" (PPBL) giving developers an entry point to gain hands on experience with Plutus by working on real projects. The output of such PPBL cohorts are documentation and task suggestions for additional developers to learn Plutus by using it. Further PBLs are planned and been piloted, e.g. Tokenomics PBL, or Self Sovereign Identity PBL which pretend to leverage on tools like Atala Prism and Dandelion (https://www.gimbalabs.com/gimbalgrid/6).
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
The educational solution is directly linked to some guiding questions of the Challenge, namely:
a. What do developers want, and how do they get it from the Cardano dev ecosystem? AND What would make it a developer motivated to grind through the docs and code no matter how hard it is to create an app?
PBL formats set a unprecedented ground for executing on the educational work needed to empower developers (and non- developers) to build out their skills and projects leading to provide infrastructure, dapps, knowledge content helping to grow Cardano positioning it as a true economic network. The concept is focusing on practical work and experiencing Cardano with the goal to contribute to actual projects - and therewith demonstrating real impact in a project/venture.
Furthermore I highlight the importance of previous guiding question on: How can we develop a sustainable ecosystem while sharing knowledge and efforts?: PBL is creating a innovative ecosystem to develop an idea - but also offering a network to the broader community to build out a viable business model, taking the idea to the next level. This way the proposed solution is:
- providing an entry point for a learning experience that lasts,
- an open-source learning concept that can be leveraged,
- a pathway for people with ideas and developing it towards becoming a self-sustaining business
The solution covers the following directions of the Challenge:
- Support structures: Developing common tools, frameworks, core infrastructures, or proof of concepts
- Incentivization structures: Education for development in the Cardano & Catalyst ecosystem; Organizing events to bring the development ecosystem together
- Knowledge base & Documentation
- Deployment, testing, and monitoring frameworks
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
Lack of PBL expertise to execute
Since July 2020, James is full time dedicated to this work which he will continue to maintain and build out further. For the very unlikely situation that the proposal will not be executed by James, there is already the initiative taking place to educate 2-3 developers who are being prepared to leverage the concept of PBL.
Missing out of participants to join PBL/playgrounds
The risk of missing out people who want to participate in PBL/playgrounds is very unlikely. Past year has shown that the PBL program has shown to be more and more attractive to developers (e.g. Plutus PBL - version 1 had 3 participants, version 3 had 40+ people subscribing). Still to mitigate the risk communication around the PBL/playground formats need to be intensified.