July 16, 2008
Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Says Education Was a Primary Motivation for His Inventions
Las Vegas — Steve Wozniak helped kick off the personal-computer revolution decades ago when he and Steve Jobs started Apple Computer in a garage in Silicon Valley, and he says education was one of the key uses he saw for computers from the beginning. The eccentric engineer talked about his passion for education and told tales of the early days of Apple during a keynote speech yesterday at Blackboard Inc.’s user conference in Las Vegas.
Mr. Wozniak, whose nickname is Woz, entered the ballroom for his speech riding a Segway scooter, to the blaring sounds of rock music. He said he always imagined that one day computers would be able to serve as virtual teachers, giving students one-on-one instruction that cannot be delivered in traditional ways because it is too expensive to have a human teacher for each student. He said computers still are not sophisticated enough to replace teachers, but said he believes that artificial-intelligence software will one day fulfill that vision. The Chronicle caught up with the Woz after his talk, and you can see highlights of the interview in the latest installment of Wired Campus TV. —Jeffrey R. Young
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Never, never,never,never replace the human one-on-one relationship between students and a human teacher. Machines, even very sophisticated machines will never offer two way interaction. Preprogrammed responses aren’t equal to a human being’s ability to contradict in a way that surprises and teaches change and human growth. Surprising responses from other are what teach us to see ourselves objectively and that’s the truest form of education. Robotic teaching can never match that.
— Ralph Proodian Jul 16, 05:59 PM #
never say never, biatch.
— joe Jul 16, 06:37 PM #
Courtesy, to use one example, is something that computers cannot quite teach yet. Whether computers ever become the sophisticated teachers Arthur C Clarke envisioned in Songs of Distant Earth remains to be seen.
The present certainty is that computers can be useful tools, but nobody has quite figured out how to use them effectively in the classroom.
Don’t forget, von Neumann, Woz, Alan Turing, et al., were all educated with chalkboards.
— payam.minoofar.com Jul 16, 07:06 PM #
one-on-one? what schools have you been looking at? try one on fifty, with the one teacher overworked, bored, and burned out. the educational potential of a “machine,” as you called it, is almost unlimited and just now starting to be truly utilized.
— jimi Jul 16, 07:14 PM #
Why don’t we just outsource our teachers? There’s a billion of them somewhere else more than willing to do something about our half-assed education system in the US.
— Sanjay Jul 17, 03:07 AM #
The half-assed U.S. educational system is, however, the envy of the world. Leading one to conclude that the rest of the world is wholly un-assed.
— Lawman Jul 17, 05:38 AM #
Hubert Dreyfus in his short book “On the Internet” addresses the opportunities and problems of online education. Especially useful is his sketch of seven stages of educational mastery, the last several of which require seeing the (human) example of the teacher.
And he does it all without a single “ass” or “biatch”!
— dionysos Jul 17, 06:54 AM #
Not only were Woz, Turing, etc educated by a chalk board, but they did their real education outside the school system. Woz said several times in his talk how he mostly taught himself by reading manuals and breaking teachers’ rules. This might explain his view of computers becoming more important in education.
— Dave Jul 17, 08:29 AM #
Why stop there? We could have AI computers teaching other AI computers. Real humans are too expensive. Not to mention they have that smell, don’t they? Maybe one day the world would be enhanced by replacing all humans with machines, is that the logical progression here? Okay, taking a bit far maybe, but this is not the way of the future, people like people. Woz lives too deep in cyberbia methinks.
— Charlie Jul 17, 11:30 AM #
The innovative thinking that Steve Wozniak has is important to guide discussion, but should not be taken as an absolute guide to how the future should be. Computers should and need to remain tools that are used to enhance the learning process. I personally do not think that human interaction – the absolutely best way to learn – can/will ever be replaced by a machine. Machines are tools, not replacements for humans, and should remain that way.
— Marie Nubia-Feliciano, M.S. Jul 17, 01:37 PM #
From my experience, as a student and as a mother of students, only a handful of our teachers provided a positive learning experience. Major egotists.
— Patty Jul 17, 10:55 PM #
I wonder what a teacher or computer-generated response would be to this oh-so intelligent response:
never say never, biatch
— Brenda Jul 21, 10:44 AM #
Yes, and Thomas Edison saw motion pictures—which he had a hand in developing—as THE educational tool of the future. So much more fascinating, more immersive, more interactive than books. Kids would learn without effort—they’d love it!
— Bob Rosenberg Jul 21, 02:34 PM #