Podcasts are a useful educational resource for improving student success, yet traditional methods of podcasting remain inefficient, vulnerable to censorship and deletion, and access-restricted. One approach to addressing these constraints is utilitarian digital pedagogy, which focuses on the use of digital tools to advance education for the greater good. Framed as such, this article outlines the conceptual and theoretical issues underlying how generative artificial intelligence (genAI), Web3, and open access (OA) improve podcasting’s utility relative to the alternatives: manual creation, Web2, and closed access. The article derives practical implications for instructors, institutions, and policymakers, and concludes by looking ahead to the major problems—hallucination, technical complexity, and rights management—to overcome in practice.
Podcasts are a useful educational resource for improving student success, yet traditional methods of podcasting remain inefficient, vulnerable to censorship and deletion, and access-restricted. One approach to addressing these constraints is utilitarian digital pedagogy, which focuses on the use of digital tools to advance education for the greater good. Framed as such, this article outlines the conceptual and theoretical issues underlying how generative artificial intelligence (genAI), Web3, and open access (OA) improve podcasting’s utility relative to the alternatives: manual creation, Web2, and closed access. The article concludes by looking ahead to the major problems—hallucination, technical complexity, and rights management—to overcome in practice.
This case examines a fictional hedge fund manager's decision about whether to maintain his fund's position in bitcoin. It provides an opportunity for students to develop an investment thesis for or against bitcoin, evaluate alternative ways to gain exposure to bitcoin, and consider bitcoin's economic function (e.g., as a currency or commodity). The case can be used in an MBA elective course on fintech, capital markets, or investments. Excerpt Bitcoin: Keep “Hodling”? Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don't know. But the one thing I'm pretty sure of is that [Bitcoin]doesn't produce anything. It's got a magic to it and people have attached magic to lots of things. —Warren Buffet, chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. I think the average investor should ask himself or herself what do you have in your portfolio that has [Bitcoin's] kind of track record—number one; is very, very underpenetrated; can provide a service of insurance against financial catastrophe that no one else can provide; and can go up ten times or fifty times. The answer is: nothing. —Bill Miller, founder, chairman, CIO, Miller Value Partners In mid-September 2025, John Brown, a hedge fund manager based in Miami, was reviewing his portfolio. His focus was on the fund's position in bitcoin. Brown had initiated a small position in the cryptocurrency (crypto) at the urging of one of the fund's limited partners (LPs) four years earlier. The bet had paid off, with the price of bitcoin more than doubling over the last four years (Exhibit 1). The path to get there, however, had been brutal. . . .
Gamification is an effective strategy for motivating and engaging users, which is grounded in business, marketing, and management by designing games in nongame contexts. Gamifying education, which consists of the design and study of educational games, is an emerging trend. However, the existing classroom games for understanding macroeconomics have weak connections to the microfoundations of individual decision-making. We design an educational game on cryptocurrency investment for understanding macroeconomic concepts in microeconomic decisions. We contribute to the literature by designing game-based learning that engages students in understanding macroeconomics in incentivized individual investment decisions. Our game can be widely implemented in online, in-person, and hybrid classrooms. We also reflect on strategies for improving the user experience for future educational game implementations.
This paper describes a cryptocurrency to reward students for their studies. The currency bears the apt name Smileycoin or SMLY and is used within the tutor-web online learning platform. In order to make the SMLY attractive to students several approaches have been used, including support from companies whose services can be purchased for SMLY. The paper describes the use of the SMLY as a reward mechanism in a large undergraduate calculus course, including student adoption, student use of SMLY, coinbase use for education in low-income areas, and response to abuse.