Foto di Christophe Hautier su Unsplash 

The present toolkit provides an easy-to-use tool to orient organisations, trainers, or educators in need of planning and implementing a basic training course on Blockchain in Europe. As such, it provides the supporting materials and tools necessary to implement, support, manage and assess effective training on blockchain for adult learners. It has been designed for educators and was created based on the research and development process implemented by B-Skills partnership. 

As a technology, Blockchain is valuable as a business tool for entities transacting with one another. In fact, across industries around the world, the Blockchain technology is helping transform business in different sectors such as the supply chain, food distribution, financial services, government, retail, and many more. With distributed ledger technology, permissioned participants can access the same information at the same time to improve efficiency, build trust and remove friction. Blockchain also allows a solution to rapidly size and scale, and many solutions can be adapted to perform multiple tasks across industries. Despite the need for Blockchain basic literacy, there are no or very few educational paths addressed to adult learners. Until recently, there were no formal education courses on this subject. Blockchain is a complex concept to understand, which requires prior knowledge of aspects such as cryptography and distributed systems. Mainly due to this issue, most courses focusing on this technology are for IT specialists and software developers. As a result, there is still a large gap in consumable and easily accessible resources to learn about this disruptive technology. In addition, there is also some confusion and lack of clarity of how this technology could be beneficial to the wider public. 

Meanwhile, companies are aware about the opportunities that the Blockchain technology can bring. Yet one of the main challenges associated with Blockchain is a lack of awareness of the technology, especially in sectors other than banking, and a widespread lack of understanding of how it works, especially within the general public. This is exacerbated by the fact that much of the publicly available information focuses primarily on cryptocurrencies. 

B-Skills project wants to address the need for providing assistance to educators and adult learners with training and supporting materials for the achievement of basic digital skills related to Blockchain technology. Such materials take into account the different knowledge levels and competences that adult learners possess, presenting the underlying concepts of the Blockchain technology at various levels of complexity and from various perspectives.