Steemit Crypto Academy | Summary On Homework Task, Week7-Season3

Background

The Homework Task Week-7(Season 3) draws to a close on 14th July 2021. During the last week, we witnessed as many as 29 entries.

I would like to congratulate all who participated and submitted their assignments during this week.

This week we covered-- Lightning Network. I hope you all now have a better insight into the practical side of "Micropayments in BTC in the 2nd layer(off-chain), opening a channel and making a lightning transfer/eCommerce purchase with zero/negligible fees".

Those who participated this week in Homework Task-7 are now well-informed about Channel State, HTLC contract, Funding Transaction, Commitment Transaction, Settlement Transaction, etc.

I hope Week 7 was productive, persuasive, informative, and educative for you all.

Steemit Crypto Academy is helping you all to bridge the gap between concept and gaining experience, particularly for naive users; thereby inducing practical intelligence. The tasks are designed & structured in a way to make you familiar with the practical exploration of a use-case. In essence, you gain real experience, and you earn as well in Steemit Crypto Academy.

I would like to convey my gratitude to the Steemit Team for coming up with such an idea and organizing a team for that cause, fostering crypto literacy.

This week, we have visited all the posts that have been submitted with the correct tag( #sapwood-s3week7, #cryptoacademy). So I would request all the participants to make sure that they use the correct tags and that should be among the first five tags. And also make sure you post in the Steemit Crypto Academy community.

Observation & Thoughts

We found 29 entries in the last week(Week-7). We have visited them all. Out of the 29 entries, 27/29 were valid entries, 1/29 was not curated because he/she features in Blacklist, and 1/29 was found to be an incomplete assignment.

This week we covered "How to set up a Lightning Wallet, How to make eCommerce purchase using the lightning channel, and how to make repetitive micropayment in BTC at zero/negligible cost".

Those who have performed a real transaction in this Task have explored the practical side of Lightning Network, HTLC payments, particularly How to open a channel & make an eCommerce purchase. Such users have definitely scored better. Nevertheless, all of you have gained first-hand information and experience with Lightning Network, HTLC payment, etc.

_{The simple average score for Week 7 (#sapwood-s3week7) stands at "7.42". Percentage of posts with a score below 5 stands at 6.89%.}

Organized writing and a curated directory of organized articles on the Trending page will also add fundamental value to Steem Blockchain & Steemit Crypto Academy. It's a continuous process and we must evolve as organized authors every day/every week through such Tasks/assignments.

This week we did not find any plagiarized content. That's a good sign. We have zero tolerance for spam/plagiarism. So any such act(and/or repeating such act) will diminish your potential in Steem Blockchain.

We observed that most of the users did not indicate the particular address associated with the Settlement Transaction, which is essential particularly when a Bitcoin transaction contains multiple outputs. So indicating/specifying it will make it easy for the readers to understand.

Always go through the rules/guidelines/deadline before submitting your assignment.

I would like to highlight a few areas which need to be addressed.

(1) Presentation:-

Screenshots (Either too small to make it readable, or not properly outlined/emphasized)

• In a practical task, you always have to provide a lot of screenshots. At times your article becomes heavy and too noisy. So you should always capture a screenshot that is really needed for the subject, neither too much, nor too little. You should crop and adjust the outer edges so that it brings the attention of the readers and becomes clearly visible & readable.

• Always outline and emphasize the specific areas in a way that it takes less effort for the readers/curators to decipher.

• If you are using different styling techniques, make it consistent with its style and color.

• Any watermark or your username on the screenshot should not be too big.

• Proper alignment of the screenshot renders a professional touch.

Repetitive/Redundant Words or sentences

Always try to avoid redundant words/sentences; redundant words obstruct flow and cause a distraction for the readers.

Proofreading
I would also request, before hitting the submit button, please read it at least once/twice. At the final stage of your writing, you must go for one round of proofreading to surface out the misspelling and grammatical errors. It was a major issue for most of the users this week too. Please take it seriously, it will enhance the structure of your content to make it readable, succinct. You can take the help of the Grammarly app for proofreading.

Proper Formatting
Proper formatting is essential to make your content more organized, your content might be good, but you need to learn the skill of presentation to make it more attractive. That always wins the attention of the reader at the first sight. Use markdown styling to present it in a professional way. If you do that on a day-to-day basis you also evolve as a professional blogger in the long run.

(2) Consistency & Compliance

It's more about assertion and correct reasoning of the same which makes your research and understanding comprehensive to make it a true representation/response to the subject.

The reasoning should also be attached to chain link your understanding of the subject.

For instance, if you say that the Lightning network is highly scalable(near-infinite), then you must attach reasoning to chainlink your depth of understanding. Similarly, when you say HTLC makes LN trustless, then the reasoning must also be attached to it.

(3) Quality of Analysis

When you develop a relationship with a dApp or a use-case(by gaining sufficient user experience), you jerked into the reality of the variants, precisely confounding variables.

Further, your research, analysis, understanding, and practical exposure to such variables will help you to draw a conclusion on the common mistakes; that will ultimately help you to appropriately demonstrate them, making you a more reliable author.

(4) Real Transactions

Try to bridge the gap between "what you know" and "How you deliver" in a Task. That is much more important, and please bear in mind that if you are attending an Advanced Tier course, your analysis & the approach should be outcome-based with realistic examples/use-cases.

For instance, when you make an eCommerce purchase with Bitrefill, then you should go through that transaction details to find the secret/preimage. You should also analyze whether that was an HTLC payment or not.

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The level of engagement is very poor. We want our participants to visit other's posts and produce insightful comments, make it an interactive session. At present only the professor is interacting with the participants. The student-to-student interaction is missing. We can't build an interconnected web and better content discovery without engagement. I request all of you to visit other's posts in Steemit Crypto Academy.

Statistics & Evaluation

Here is the stat of the 29 entries in Homework Task-7(Season 3)

Total Entries- 29

Total nos of posts with a grading/rating below 5= 2

We have evaluated all the entries on the basis of the following parameters:-

• Proper representation of a task
• Whether covered all the sub-parts of an assignment or not
• Real Transaction to demonstrate the experience with "Lightning Network"
• Consistency/Compliance/Reasoning
• Proper formatting
• True representation of the text/subject(with illustration/screenshot)
• Quality of Analysis
• Grammar/Spelling
• Free of Spam/Plagiarism.
• Adhering to the laid rules or not
• Proof-Reading
• Original content

Of the 29 entries, I found the following three as the best entries this week.

S No	Author	Post Link	Remarks
1	@dharamps	Link	The author has produced a well-organized article & has practically demonstrated a few things in a unique way-- Channel State, Outbound Capacity, Inbound Capacity, HTLC, etc. It does elicit the depth of understanding of the subject.
2	@aneukpineung78	Link	The author has produced neat & clean content, noise-free content, kept it precise in line with the requirements of the Task.
3	@utsavsaxena11	Link	The continuous improvement, untiring efforts to make it better has made the author standout in Week7, the author has explained HTLC with illustrative examples to portray an overall understanding of the subject.

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_{NB- Selection of a winner may not be absolute, most of the time, it is based on the relative performance. As long as you focus on all the sub-parts of Homework Task and gain sufficient user experience, include real examples & analysis, you stand better to win it.}

Conclusion

We all are committed to creating an enriched communication environment, organizational interactions, etc which is a precursor to building a foundation of crypto literacy. The right information and education should percolate down the line and the PoB will come along to reward you(extrinsic motivation).

We will try our best to structure a task to draw real-life experiences for you, to motivate you for sustained attention to the task/academy. The participants should also reciprocate in line with the Task requirement, particularly if it demands a real trade/transactions/experience. Healthy participation and effective discussion are key to the overall success of the Crypto Academy.

We will also try our best to reinforce the principle of collectivism/democracy (but always on the basis of performance) through the crypto academy.

The crypto academy is also an avenue to learn to reason and to find & explore the passions and talents of the users in this ecosystem.

Gain as much user experience as you can. But always be your own. Don't hesitate to write what you have understood(even if you are wrong), We will take care of corrections if needed. The most important thing at the end of the day is what you learned.

The take-home message-- Develop a relationship with dApp/Exchange(or as the Task demands), Learn, Experience, Perform a real Trade, Analyze; then submit your assignment. This is the ideal path to economic advantage(upvote) & crypto literacy.

Thank you.

Cc:-
@steemitblog
@steemcurator01
@steemcurator02

Unless otherwise stated, all the images, infographics, charts, tables, etc(if any) are my original works.