Learn To Earn

In 2014 the Immersive Education Initiative established the "Learn to Earn" program and Global Education Scholarship (below),  for which the Knowledge Token® (also known as Knowken®) is a corresponding digital participation and achievement token that is awarded to learners in exchange for intellectual achievements.

Knowledge Token® digital tokens can be considered to be "Intellectual currency" and, as such, may be used to pay for conferences, training and certification programs, camps, clubs, Minecraft accounts & servers, and Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, 360 degree VR cameras, VR and gaming graphics cards (GPUs), and more.

Knowledge Token (Knowken) MAGAZINE COVERWhat is a Knowledge Token? Learn about the Knowken incentivization and reward system in this Magazine of the International Child Art Foundation interview with Immersive Education Initiative Director Aaron E. Walsh.

 

Immersive Education studentsStudents from Boston's St. John School on an Immersive Education "Creative Computing Club" field trip

Global Education Scholarship

At IMMERSION 2014 in Los Angeles, California, the Immersive Education Initiative established the "Learn to Earn" scholarship, the world's first global education scholarship fundable through Bitcoin. The Immersive Education Initiative is a non-profit international collaboration of educational institutions, research institutes, museums, consortia and companies. The Initiative was established in 2005 with the mission to define and develop standards, best practices, technology platforms, training and education programs, and communities of support for virtual worlds, virtual reality, augmented and mixed reality, simulations, game-based learning and training systems, and fully immersive environments such as caves and domes.

Thousands of faculty, researchers, staff and administrators are members of the Immersive Education Initiative, who together service millions of academic and corporate learners worldwide. Chapters support the rapid and continued growth of Immersive Education throughout the world, and constitute the geographically distributed structure of the organization through which regional and local members are supported and enriched. Chapters organize officially sanctioned Summits, Days, workshops, collaborations, seminars, lectures, forums, meetings, public service events and activities, technical groups, technical work items, research, and related activities.

Members and participants include faculty, researchers, staff, administrators and professionals from Boston College, Harvard University (Harvard Graduate School of Education, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, and Harvard Kennedy School of Government), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MIT Media Lab, The Smithsonian Institution, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), Federation of American Scientists (FAS), United States Department of Education, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Temple University, Stanford University, Internet 2, Cornell University, Loyola Marymount University, Southeast Kansas Education Service Center, Kauffman Foundation, Amherst College, Boston Library Consortium, Stratasys Ltd., South Park Elementary School, Duke University, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Turner Broadcasting, Open Wonderland Foundation, Gates Planetarium, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Intel, University of Maryland College Park, realXtend (Finland), Computerworld, The MOFET Institute (Israel), Keio University (Japan), National University of Singapore (NUS), Coventry University (UK), Giunti Labs (Italy) and European Learning Industry Group, Open University (UK), Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), University of Oulu (Finland), Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (EnsAD; France), Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (Israel), Graz University of Technology (Austria), University of West of Scotland (UK), University of Essex (UK), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), University of Vienna (Austria), Government of New South Wales (Australia), Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem (Hungary), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS; Brazil) and many more world-class organizations.

Scholarship Dispersal

Learn to Earn scholarship funds are allocated under two categories:

  1. Professional Development: Funding for teachers, students and budding young entrepreneurs to attend educational conferences, receive training and certification on immersive technologies for education, and enroll in camps, clubs and classes that they could not afford otherwise.
     
  2. Intellectual Enrichment: Rewards learners of all ages who complete intellectually challenging tasks using educational software as well as using commercial video games and software products that, while not specifically designed for educational purposes, support intellectually challenging and enriching activities (such as Minecraft, Portal, LittleBigPlanet, Civilization, Google Earth & Sky, Scribblenauts).

 

Students at South Park Elementary School in Colorado study wildlife and ecosystems by exploring the Smithsonian LVM virtual watershed in an Immersive Education CAVE

2014 PROGRAM LAUNCH ARCHIVES