Tokenized: How to Use NFTs to Create a Microschool Community

Do you run a microschool, online academy or create courses for your business? Have you thought about tokenizing your community?

If you're interested in learning more about how to use NFTs and social tokens within your microschool, be sure to listen to our podcast below. We'll be discussing this topic in more depth. Thanks for listening!

A microschool is a small, private institution where students and adult learners are empowered to personalize their own education and are held accountable for their own progress. They are becoming increasingly popular as web technology becomes more prevalent.

One way that microschools can use web 3 technology is by creating nfts or social tokens. Nfts are unique digital assets that can be used to signify class attendance, accessing resources or completing activities.

A microschool could use social tokens to fund and reward student-led projects or to encourage positive interactions between students and adults. This would create a more effective community within the microschool and help to motivate and engage students.

Tokenizing your microschool community allows you to create a more engaged and committed user base, as well as generate revenue from your tokenized ecosystem.

In this episode we will learn:

• What are the different types of microschools? (This answer may surprise you.)
• What are some reasons you will want to tokenize them? (they might not be what you think)
• What are some challenges you may have using NFTs and social tokens with your microschool, online course, or academy? (are the really challenges)
• Why you should focus on community development before introducing a social token, creator coin, or community token?

Microschools are becoming increasingly popular as web technology becomes more prevalent. You may be wondering how you can use NFTs and social tokens to create a more effective community within your microschool.

Transcript

0:02

I love me. Remember to do that. So I am going to do a very intro and then I'm going to kind of hand the mic over to you. So you can talk about your experiences at micro schools. So you're going to talk about that and then I'll talk about how micro schools can also be something. That course creators can can create. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Then we'll go into some of the reasons why some of the microscope all's that you have worked with may want to be tokenized and then I can add, you know, my two cents to it and we can talk about some of the challenges that you think, that micro schools will have when it comes to tokenize in their communities, then I'll add input from that and then we'll talk about how We're going to continue on this conversation next week, talking about how to develop communities that are ready to be tokenized. Besa is it is done that. Okay. I'm ready whenever you are. I Are you going to go my signal? Hold on? All right. I was like, I still see mail and I looked at the start smelling you dare like Miss ready to be okay? Oh wait now shit. Alright, you ready? Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome so much. I almost said to the data cache to the coaches and they to cast me as within us. It will always be a piece of us. There. Always be a part of what it is that we're doing. So this is the coaches who build world's podcast. I am Contessa Louisa Cooper and my co-host here is dr. Kimberly Douglas with the two. As us? What did I just say? Did I say you asses? What conceptual leap you made in your ear? Well, you know, I was going to say something and I decided, you know what? I'm not gonna embarrass. Dr. Kimberly today that it. So in my mind originally, I was going to say with dr. Kimberly Douglas with the two s's kiss, her ass is so fat. Well, you know, I do what I can. Okay, cat doesn't bring it back. We're talking about the data cast lives within us. We're talking about tokenizing micro schools. Help youto friend of mine this morning and she's like, what are you guys going to talk about? And I told her she's kind of looked at me and slowly blinked, her eyes like three times and I was I appreciate you asking and maybe one day this will be something that you would want to listen to. Because I know the work that she does. Okay, okay, and she doesn't even get it yet. And I have a lot of work to do and explaining this to coaches and course, creators and people who produce content. Let's talk about that. I want everybody to know that you have like experience with microscopes and I don't want to put words in my mouth. And so I'm just going to kind of have the mic over to you truly about your experiences and kind of explain what a micro school is. Okay. So Minecraft school is just like it sounds. A smaller school and the micro school does Doesn't suggest that it operates in any particular way. So there are a lot of different learning styles that you could sew the microscope and part of a public school or usually, what I see. It's part of something that's built around homes homeschooling, but let's talk about the one from public schools, which is not the center here, but I just want to make sure I'm defining this clearly within a public school. You could have a smaller School. For kids who for example, have certain sensory needs so that they have the space where they're not over stimulated or it could be for gifted education. It's like pulling them in for a certain reason. Maybe they have a different schedule than everybody else. So it's a smaller School within the school. Usually, when people talking about micro school, they're talking about something that is more like a home. School Co-op, where you have all these different homes schools functioning in the community and they come together to form their own micro Community around the school. And it could be held together by religious beliefs. It could be held together by a certain type of curriculum. So some people have nature-based curriculum where they spend most of the time at side and learning the pedagogy the teaching. is per a lot of it is provided in nature and by Sure as well or it could be based upon a certain a certain type of practice or like the Montessori could be method. Could be used in Montessori is where you it's partially self-directed and you have these certain instruments that the kids work. With throughout the day. There's not me pictures on the wall. It's a very sterile environment where the children have a lot of say so in directing your day. And then there are situations like my son went to a totally self-directed school where he decided all day long what he was going to work on and actually I saw a lot of personal growth with him during that period so that was a type of Micro school. And in 2020. I helped start a microscope that my son now. Attends it's called The Pearl remote Democratic High School, which is partially self-directed. certainly, student-led student-centered and the directors doing a really good job of Implementing this, where the kids have a lot of taste on what they do in their projects, but she's also put a structure in place, so that parents and children in the state know exactly what's happening there. What they can expect what the outcomes can be. So there are lots of different learning styles that could come into play the micro school. And so just like other schools. Once you start to talk about this as a thing, you then have to start thinking about. How am I going to find this in the end? That's what we can start to have a conversation about tokenization and other forms of funding. But the first thing you have to talk about is community. Excellent. Excellent work. All right. So this is where I'm going to kind of slide in and talk about other type of rules. And so when you have a content creator, or coach, or someone who lies streams, Some of the ways that you can fund, whatever it is that you're doing for a lack of words is to create an academy is too cool to be able to certify or gift certificates saying that. Yes, you went through my program and here's a way that you can show that you are you now have the skills in order to go out and do whatever it is to Want to do. I say, for instance. I'm really good friends with someone who has a yoga studio and she certifies yoga instructors. So people who want yoga instructors. She does that. So what she did is she created a micro school and Academy to You can go in and do everything that you need to do in order to get certified and then get your certificate. I know people who have spiritual schools where you can they can certify someone who knows Reiki or certified someone and you know, different rituals different Lifestyles and things like that. There are coaches who have these great coaching programs so decided to create academies and we know someone who is a VA who was thinking about Aiding and Academy or school to trade, other va's. These are all micro schools. Absolutely. Those are really good examples, right? And people don't even realize that this is a term that they could be using order to not. That is important, right? To be to sound official, but you put a different set of eyes. Yes. Your Academy when you call it a micro school work is an academy versus, you know, just my certification program. And so that's where it comes into learning and teaching content creators. Like, hey, you could be creating micro schools instead of just creating courses, right? Exactly. And I think those are really good points because you're talking about bout. Creating a system for you can do this for children in homeschool and other environments that you can also do this for adult learning as well. And I'm going to throw out another term here which relates to what you're saying, which is called micro-credentialing. Yeah. Yeah, I think about credentialing in terms of These Awards or these recognitions given by institutions organizations, but you as a person who's leading on micro school or an academy. However, you want to phrase it and how you phrase, it does matter because that suggests to people, it signals to people that you are offering a certain thing, but micro-credentialing creating a micro School, my car Academy or Academy. Gives you the opportunity to put something in place. That is reliable. That is stable. You can show that you have a process that you have a system and you also have the opportunity to create digital Badges and things like that, that show you mean business. And that people can carry these credentials wherever they go. it's also easier to create Partnerships scholarships relationships with your city, with your county, with your state when you're using terms such as School about the co the community that you're building around your courses, your ideas around your systems. And so that kind of leads into what are some of the reasons, right? What are some of the reasons why you want to create a micro school? What are some of the reasons why you want to tokenize? Sure, I grow schools and to tokenize a school just means that you're going to use something like an mft, you're going to use something like a social coin. You're going to use something like, cryptocurrency and order to either gain access. A reward system to fundraise. And there's going to be information on our websites. Exactly. Explaining what a tokenized community is, but dr. Kimberly, what are some reasons why you want to do this? So with the micro school, if you're looking at it from the K-12 perspective. For a lot of home schools, they are operating in isolation. So it's one way of creating community and sharing curriculum and so it helps spread the workout and also, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. If somebody is already doing offering lessons in the way that works with your value system. Then you can take advantage of that in a good way without having to do all that work yourself. And just sharing the resource know, that's what community is all about. There are plenty of us who could go out here. We could just lay and just do things by ourselves and make things happen. But the sustainability the long-term effect is you can you can last longer. You can operate more efficiently if you do that in community. And also the knowledge sharing, you know, there's so many lessons that you won't learn. Earn if you're operating in isolation, so as far as Community to teach children or Community to teach adults any of those communities are strengthened when you have a, an understanding about what the community is about. You understand how you were going to share resources. You understand what your underlying values. Are you understand how the He is going to support each individual and how each individual is going to support the community. They're just many opportunities to lighten your load and to enhance your experience inside the community as opposed to working by yourself. One of the things that means a lot to me being as a content creator is I'm on platforms. Like Facebook or or Tick Tock or anything like that. I don't feel like I'm part of something bigger, right? I just like that. I'm out here. I'm putting out my content and maybe people will get a chance to see it depending on whether or not these platforms like me today or whether or not they feel like that they can profit off of my car, but I don't feel a sense of ownership with in a token. Sized Community. When you are tokenizing a microscope, you'll when you're tokenizing your Academy, it gives me a sense of yet. So we know everyone who has this token, everyone who has this nft. We are all connected to something bigger than us. We're all Imports. And idea. We're all connected towards this project. We're all- to this common goal, not only am I connected but I have a say, right. So yeah, go ahead. What you're talking about is if you look at it from a stakeholder perspective. When you're part of a community, you have a certain state in their community. And then when you start to talk about something like monetizing or tokenizing or using in Auntie's, now you start to change the stakes in the situation. So you're talking about something that requires more buy-in requires a more. For you to pay a little closer attention, right? Because the potential steaks or Rewards or the return that you get on the community could possibly go up. And so now that means a little more coordination is required. And the thing is, people can't afford to sit on the silence. We talked about this before. You're going to need things, you're going to need things that the government is not going to provide. We see that very clearly now, and the way we enter into these communities, whether it's their tokenized or not is going to matter a lot to our well-being. But also, when we start to get in these Arrangements where we're tokenizing, we have a shared currency, then that changes the game that helps put us in. The game and it is a game called that is going to happen whether we participate in or not. These games have been going on since the beginning of time and now we have an opportunity. Eternity through tokenized to micro schools, through tokenized Community, to make some changes because we now have a group of individual. Say, we all believe this one thing and we can start showing up and local governments start showing up on the steps of courthouses. We can start showing up at all buildings. We can start saying, hey, this isn't fair. This is unfair. And we have a, we have with people saying that there's some change that needs to be done. You need to take a look at this, a little more closely. You can really start to make a change in your community. When you have a group of individuals who have come together through this tokenized micro school and saying, yes, we believe in Justice. We believe that things can be better than the way that they are. So the person that I imagined was listening to, this is a person who is a leader, right? Because there are certain things they're going to make people's ears stand up. And if you're one of these people who join things to be passive to hang back, then you're probably going to hear this very differently than somebody who is a leader. And so what I saw I say to the people who are the leaders, there are so many opportunities out there, but very specific opportunities. Depending on what your interests are, where you can take Community to the next level. And the things that we're talking about our ways that you can move your community forward because they have to be moved forward. Passivity is one of the Is blows to community? So I'm talking to the people. I think we're talking to the people who are going to get in there. Who instead. Wait a minute. What can we actually do this? Whether it's a micro school or if it's some other type of arrangement. What can we do is to strengthen our community to get buy-in from people because we're willing to do the work, we're going to do. The legwork were willing to make things happen. How do we bring people? People together as a community and then start to talk about what it means to have a currency for this community. So we're going to talk about some of the challenges that may come up when you're talking about tokenizing. For schools, and I can hear it clearly in my head. Well, I'm a business person. I'm not activists. I'm not, I'm not, you know, what's another word. I'm not an activist. I'm not a protester, not a protester. I'm not, I'm not here to Advocate Advocate. There we go. I'm not any of those things. And my answer is, Are you sure, right? Are you sure because most of the leaders that I know, most of the people that I know who created businesses, did it? Because they didn't like the current system, the eighth, like, the way that businesses are being ran. They did not like the way that they are people who look like them were being treated. They didn't like the current rules that are set aside. They didn't like glass. Feelings. They didn't they didn't like any of these things and so they create they went out and created their own. They have they have this this Manifesto in their head about why they do things the way that they do. So I'm going to challenge you on that and say are you? Sure. Absolutely. And what I hear you talking about here? There's a word that pops up in my head when you're here to talk about this which is Leverage. As in my business person, operating solo and isolation. There's a certain set of type of Leverage that you have. But that leverage changes when you operate any community and then you get a different kind of Leverage if you're able to share a token or currency or some other type of reward system. When we share that with a group of people, when you spray it, the risk in the benefit and that creates a different type of another layer of Leverage. And so what We have to be seeking in this environment in this environment where we think we can be passive and just show up and vote. We have to constantly be seeking that Higher Ground or seeking that thing that is going to give us more and more leverage. Another challenge is, how do I explain this to my community, how when they have everything else going on? Now? Here's something new. Why can't we just do what we've been doing? And one of the things that we talked about here on the coaches who build worlds podcast. And also, when we were the data cast is that things are changing. Elegy is changing every single day. And right now you have the opportunity to buy in to this new technology when it's extremely accessible and available where you can take part in making and molding this right now, we're all kind of learning. We're all trying to move their together. There's like, equal footing and equal playing ground right now. Like when Instagram first came out, when Twitter first came out, right? Everybody was just kind of in the same place. And then there comes a time where the people who have been in it longer longer is kind of up here and doesn't have the same opportunities, right? That was there. And you don't want to wait until everyone else has bought in and then you finally decide. Well, maybe I'll try this tokenization thing. I don't know how this is going to. Grow know how this is going to change in the next two to five years. All I do know is that right? Now? The doors are wide open. Anyone, any person who wants to grab some of these opportunities you can The beauty of what you're saying is this. It made me think about all these people who have Facebook groups for example, and so, you know, we can tell you talk about this, in terms of K-12 Michael schools. We can also talk about people holding their having their own microscopes for adult learning. But what it made me think about these Facebook groups, and the time. And I actually sat down and did the math on, how much time I've been spending on Facebook and other social media platforms and trying to grow communities. And also currently evaluating read I'm waiting what, how I'm using Discord and really thinking very deeply about that. I challenge coaches for, however, whatever label you give yourself who run these communities to really sit down and do the cost-benefit analysis on running these communities. So when we say to you, the door is open and thinking about what it means to have a token, have a currency. This is an opportunity to Re-evaluate, what you are doing in these spaces and so it's about 3.0 technology. But this is an opportunity for you to think. Wait a minute. Am I getting the return on this? And Facebook is easy. It's Handy's, convenient. But when I think about the amount of time in and however you whatever value you put in your time, but I think about the amount of time that I've spent on their spent within this group. What has that? Netted me and then also, Designated the people who are in my community so I can pull that apart. I can really look at it. And then really think about what it means to add a currency or token. This is, this is a great opportunity to do that. To really think about because you don't really know the value that you can add, if you don't understand the value, that it is bringing you right now. And so I know me, right? And the thought of sitting down and actually doing this cost-benefit analysis made my skin crawl. Of course. And it's only because I believe already know the answer. Yes, you do. Yes, but D it and black-and-white to see it's a chow, you're wasting your time over here is Lee going to upset my spirit and it's going to make me change, right? So and many of us don't like change don't want to chain, but it's necessary. I think you make a really good point because you don't have to get out your Excel spreadsheet. You can go look at your numbers and you can look at very quickly. Look at who in that Community is like, what has been your relationship with them? And you know, within a matter of seconds minutes and even seconds, whether or not this group is giving you what you thought it would give you. You know, that the question is, are you willing to look at that? Like, even if you don't have it down there, like in detail, but But again, I think is what you're saying. Most people don't want to look at that. Like that is the idea that you have to do something different. It's very uncomfortable. It is very uncomfortable and we're very comfortable on Facebook. Even if for not getting clients, I tell, I have told so many of my clients so many people that I've worked with that. Your clients. Your community is not on Facebook. You need to get off. Yes. Yes. As we're so comfortable. There. We are willing. The spend time there were willing to create all this content there. No way. We're not going to. Yes, absolutely. We're going to reach and then have the nerve and the audacity to complain, but guess what? This is a planned outcome. It was planned in somebody's drawing room or boardroom for you to be passive to show up in the space for you to give. You in not expect any value return to live under the illusion that you were growing in community that this is a planned outcome. But is not an outcome that is going to work for you long term or even in the short term. It's not working for you. It is. Which leads us to part 2 of this conversation and so We could make this a for our podcast. We're not going to because we know that yo you will tap out and we hope you'll check that out. We're going to tap out. This is my Clubhouse. Anyway, we're going to break this up to different parts. And next week. We're going to talk about community and Community for a microscope because I'm going to say this as plainly as I possibly can really fucked up what is to be in community and what it means to build community because y'all ain't doing it. We think we're doing it. We think we have community and we don't and so we need to look at that. Yes. Dr. Kimberly. Pardon me. You know, one of the reasons I think we don't really talk about Community a lot and take it very seriously. Is because we think that our needs are being met. And they are not. There is a thin veneer. And which then lays over the fact? that a lot of people have a hard time right now and have had for years and the safety nets that people used to have just are not there. That's why you see all these Mutual Aid societies popping up. And we need to talk about Community because this absolutely has everything to do with you. Even if you don't think it deserves. So I encourage you to stay plugged into the conversation and come back to your go to the next episode. So we can really pull that apart and start to think about what it means to be in community with people. Yes, your material needs may be met. But there's a whole other layer of well-being that is just not doing it for us. We need different expectations of what it means to be in community with people. Yes, and being in community. Say this, in closing being in community does not mean I'm going to reach, 10,000 people who's going to buy my shit. That's not what community means, and if that is your community. It is going to be damn near impossible to tokenize it. Yeah. Yeah. As never get rich quick statement now, and we will tell you why it will be impossible. Double to tokenize that Community next time. Next time of the coaches, who build worlds podcasts that to Kimberly. Do you have any last words before we peace out? I want to encourage people to pick up the next. Get the next episode listen to. It. Really just think about the kind of nervous that you need because that's what it's about. Community, is about leverage. Yes. There are people out there who are extraordinary people, who can do a lot fast for themselves. Elves. But if you want to go deep and go far, it really does take community. And when you start to have these conversations explicitly and out in the open, you start to see how a lot of the messages that we've been given over time really are about pulling away from Community. There's so many ways that we are encouraged to not be in community is take a very individual type of Ouch, but we really have to show up differently and start to think about what the small where the coaches who built worlds. So what we were challenging you to do is to think about what these smaller worlds with these smaller systems can do for you and what you can do within these small worlds. I'm excited. I'm loving this series. If you have a micro school if you are thinking about creating a Micro school, I would encourage you to contact us to ask us questions to, in a US on social media so that you we know that you have seen us and so that we can see you and create the kind of content give you guidance and maybe we can even, you know, coach you on how you can tokenize. Or micro school. Thank you so much for listening until next time. Bye now. Bye.