Steve Jobs: Student, Teacher And Leader In Revolutionizing Education And Technology 

The Huffington Post.   Emmeline Zhao   First Posted: 10/6/11 01:02 PM ET

In a time of educational debate and shuffling nationwide, a college dropout, businessman and paragon of technological innovation emerged as an inadvertent, but forceful, momentum for an educational revolution around the world.

Steve Jobs wasn't the best student in the traditional sense, as he dropped out of college within six months of enrolling. But in the years following, the world watched as he built Apple and as he taught himself through numerous failures and subsequent successes. His career became an education for himself, his employees and his customers.

By way of educational ideology, Jobs was a believer in equal opportunity, according to a 1995 interview with Daniel Morrow, executive director of the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program.

"I don't believe in equal outcome because unfortunately life's not like that," Jobs told Morrow. "It would be a pretty boring place if it was."

Following the news of Jobs' death Wednesday night, thousands of tributes poured in, honoring the tech pioneer's life, career and pervasive contribution to the operations, capabilities and outlook of innumerable industries. Among those messages was this tribute from the parent of an autistic child.
"Steve Jobs Saved My Son," the CNN iReport post is titled.
"Thank you Steve Jobs for helping my son," the mother writes. "You have given us hope we thought we would never have."

Her 3-year-old son doesn't talk, but his ability to communicate has been revolutionized by the use of Apple's iPad, she says.

The Apple computer lab at Monsignor Paul Dwyer Catholic school in Ontario, Canada is lit with screens of Jobs' image. The person who runs the lab told CNN iReport producer rachel8 that Jobs was the one person aside from his family and teaching career who shaped his life.

"It's crazy," he said. "You'd never think that somebody you'd never met could have such an influence on you."

And not only never met, but perhaps have never shared footing on the same continent, Beijing teenager Silu Wang told Businessweek she was inspired by Steve Jobs, and attributes her high test scores to using him as her subject on an essay for college admission to the U.S.

But back Stateside, Jobs' legacy and influence on education has expanded from typography and word processing on iMacs to the beginnings of a completely new system and revolutionary methods of teaching and learning through the use of gadgets like iPhones and iPads in classrooms -- in addition to what we now consider the more traditional computer. Jobs' story has come a long way since his company donated Apple II computers to 10,000 schools in California in 1983


Schools across the country have joined a movement that trims textbooks in schools, replacing them with the lighter, sleeker iPad. The introduction of tablet computers are expected to cut costs for school districts long-term, and host a multitude of new ways students can interact in learning and complete assignments -- shifting the learning process from the rigid lecture to a more dynamic collaboration.

But even as his products have seeped into the pores of industry, Jobs was one to note that technology isn't an instigator of change -- people like teachers are. People, he tells Morrow, are the ones who ignite and fuel curiosity, things that machines cannot do. The marriage of technology and human momentum through learning is what has and will shape the future of education.

"You need a person. Especially with computers the way they are now. Computers are very reactive but they're not proactive; they are not agents, if you will. They are very reactive," he said. "What children need is something more proactive. They need a guide. They don't need an assistant. I think we have all the material in the world to solve this problem; it's just being deployed in other places."

It's this very embedding of Jobs' creations into our culture and education that has students reflecting on his leadership and the message behind his life.

"If you set your mind to it, you can do anything you want. Just imagine it and you can go with it," Old Dominion University student Nick Jennings told WAVY.com. "You just got to work for it. You've got to know what you want to do. It's pretty inspirational, he was a good man."

While his followers and consumers were inspired by his experiences, life philosophy and innovative products, Jobs said in his 1995 interview with Morrow that without a number of teachers who influenced him, "I would have absolutely have ended up in jail…. When you're young, a little bit of course correction goes a long way. I think it takes pretty talented people to do that."

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Steve Wozniak Tearfully Remembers His Friend Steve.

How does the IPad changes or challenges society in a political, social and an economical way?

By Apple.MacOs Review Center. April 8, 2011.

How does the ipad changes or challenges society in a political, social, economical way? In addition, how does the ipad relate to the 3 disciplines of Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology? Thanks.

Well, politically, the iPad won't have much of an impact, other than potentially (although however unlikely) getting people to read the news more on it.

Socially, the iPad, again, won't change anything. Tablet computers have been around for a long time, and it is pretty expensive for what it is. Challenges, on the other hand are different. the iPad was introduced as an expensive, new, and unneeded toy in an economically unstable time. People personally have to decide whether they can afford it, or whether they actually want it. In fact, for the most part, the only reason people buy Apple products is because it is an Apple product, regardless of quality.

Economically, it is going through it's boom stage right now. Money will go from consumers to Apple, which will pay off the debt of making the device, and then turn up some profit. Stores will often gain little-to-no profit from these devices, so it won't make a huge splash, especially in the long-term. as stated before, people need to decide whether they can afford it or not, and I suppose that's the only real challenge that can come about in an economic sense.

Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology are essentially the same thing, with three different groups of people. Psychology refers to the individual, Sociology meaning a group of individuals in a society, and Anthropology being culture at large. Thusly, all three of them can be answered with one line of reasoning. It relates to them in saying that people love to chase brand names, which means they have a connection with the company. Forming a connection with a company means that they are needy, and enjoy connections. what that boils down to is that people have a growing need for relationships, be it with actual people, or even with a faceless entity like Apple. also, the brand-name thing really embodies capitalism as a whole, but that's a whole different story. More importantly, the iPad really introduces the concept of instant gratification to us, yet again. People don't want to have a collection of books that they have to look through, or actually even turn the pages anymore. They want a one-paged book that can give you the definition of a word at the touch. on that matter, also, people want to remain ignorant, using nothing but their hands to control things, without even a simple understanding of how a touch screen works.

Sorry if that sounded rant-like, and hope that helps, with your homework I assume!

You may have a better luck in getting answers if you post it under the "Social Sciences" forums.

There is a lot of hoopla, but tablet-based PCs have been around for a while and life still goes on as usual.

Ignore the punters. Most of the changes will social, but meaningful social impact will change politics.

The problem with computers and software design right now is that it is still controlled by people who oddly value complexity and opacity, simply because many of the tools used to create devices are themselves complex and opaque. Yet the overwhelming majority of people who use computers do not care, not do they have to care, about CPU speeds, RAM, backside bus speeds, serial ports or CMOS batteries. It's simply irrelevant what the specs of the hardware are to people who simply want to create and/or consume digital media, be it art, entertainment, or ideas.

The iPad is the first true multimedia device designed expressly to be used by people with little or no technical knowledge. And the technology obsessed can jump up and down all they want about tech specs and tinkering and other esoterica, but the fact of the matter is that no one has to know anything about an automatic transmissions to get the kids to school, drive daily to work or assist in the construction of a building. There will always be a requirement for specialised knowledge, and those people will always be around to design, repair and maintain technology. But millions of people go about important work everyday and they have absolutely no requirement whatsoever to understand or be able to repair and/or modify the automatic transmission, and they should not be required to do so.

Yet for 20 years many of the purveyors of technological progress have been incapable of producing powerful technology that is also simple to use because they have spent little or no time to approach development from a usability standpoint.

Except for Apple. And once people begin to see the power of technology that anyone can use, they will migrate towards other technologies that put ease of use over meaningless tech specs and port overload. Think of how many people using standard PCs have almost magical beliefs about hardware because of the temperamental nature of the technology, and how this limits their thinking with regards to the application of technology. Is it any wonder that their are people still filling out pay stubs and sales sheets by hand when they don't trust the technology that's forced upon them, with a set of arcane and pointless rules only required because the technology is purposely designed to be arcane?

“Potential. Promise. Hope. that, if anything, is the real magic of it. In the meantime, it's off to a pretty good start.”

Do you remember the iMac? the first one? It was the first indication that Apple was back under Steve Jobs’ control. It heralded something new for Apple, and something new for personal computing. not the colours, eventually they went away. And it wasn’t what it had for specs, it’s what it was missing: a floppy, and serial ports. Think how long it took for the industry to get rid of that junk. up until last year we could still get Dell servers with PS2 ports. More than 10 years after Jobs showed the way, motherboards were cluttered with the detritus of dead technologies. all in the interest of not upsetting anyone.

The attacks on the iMac’s lack of a floppy (a technology outdated and all but useless even then) were shrill and ridiculous then. how do they look now with gigabit network connections and 16 gig USB sticks that fit on a keychain?

But where this ties in with the iPad is this: that first iMac was using a Powerbook motherboard. Was the iMac a Hail Mary? Even in retrospect it seems like it. And how much development, hardware design coding was saved by using essentially off the shelf parts? Probably quite a bit. But it didn’t matter, because the iMac was not a new piece of hardware so much as a new concept of the home computer. that of the computer as an appliance, as many writers on tech blogs and elsewhere have discussed, some with praise, some with disgust. the iMac got custom hardware and it began it’s evolution to the glass and aluminum beauty we can buy today. But it never changed from that original concept. Plug it in, turn it on. And with Bluetooth, and WiFi, you were down to one plug.

So now we have the iPad. And what is it, essentially? It’s a large iPod Touch. Is there anywhere in computing and software design where the principles of evolution are so eloquently expressed? take what works, expand on it, and ruthlessly cleave away that which no longer serves a purpose. Apple forced the rapid adoption of USB. It will probably force its demise, and force the wider adoption of wireless technologies. And as one online pundit already stated, much of the violent opposition (some anti-iPad articles practically seethe, and they hadn’t even so much as seen one!) to the iPad is nothing less than future shock. are we even capable of imagining what the PC landscape might look like without Apple? I certainly can’t, but I know we’d be even further behind without Jobs dragging us kicking and screaming

"IPAD" impact on political, social and economical ways is insubstantial outside a few rich cities of the US (elsewhere, even less). even in these cities, the effects would be pretty minimal considering theconomicic climate. the people really affected will be the macheads, some rich kids and young professionals (man-kids), about 10% of the population of the richer cities in the US. 
In more specific terms, the effects may be like this – 
Psychology: a new class of Ipad "haves" and have-nots", with con-comittant use of the Ipad as an object of social power and snobbery. the distance between people who can afford useless **** versus those who lack basic necessities (like a job) will widen.
Social: all the hoopla about the Ipad in the media sounds like it is a "real" harbinger of change. However, even the Ipod/ iphone really did not have any large lasting effect in the society. the Ipad is even more of a meaningless gizmo in broader social terms.
Anthropology: Seriously?

Un buen artista copia, el gran artista roba - Good artist copy, great artist steal

"Good artist copy, great artist steal"... esta es una de las tantas citas memorables de la película "Piratas de Silicon Valley" (1999). 

- Ver película online o al final del post - 

Es un film que todo aficionado a la tecnología debiera ver, tanto los seguidores de la manzana o la ventana; esta cuenta la historia de unos jóvenes Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak  (Apple) y Bill Gates, Paul Allen y Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) dando inicio a lo que hoy conocemos como dos de las más grandes empresas de la informática. Todo lo relatado en la película permite conocer lo que hoy tenemos frente a nosotros: la personal computer y todo lo asociado a ello. Es una historia fascinante de creatividad, lealtades y deslealtades, amistad y emociones de estos personajes que sin duda han cambiado el mundo actual. 


Desde lo contrafactual, al ver el incidente de cómo Bill Gates "roba" a Steve Jobs su OS para dar paso a lo que el llamaría su creación - Windows -, da para hacer la pregunta qué hubiera pasado si Jobs no se hubiera fiado de Gates - qué hubiera sido de él -, considerando que Apple tuvo en su equipo a Microsoft... quizás no habría variado mucho la historia ¿o sí?... casi al finalizar la película se viene esta otra frase: 

Steve Jobs: “Somos mejores que ustedes. Nuestro producto es superior.”

Bill Gates: “No lo entiendes Steve, eso no importa.”

La arrogancia de Steve Jobs lo llevaría a ser despedido de su propia empresa, que Woz renunciase a Apple y Bill Gates se convirtiera en el hombre más rico del mundo por años. La película termina abruptamente adelantándose a 1997 cuando Jobs vuelve a Apple siendo observado desde una pantalla gigante en una de sus religiosas presentaciones - ¿superioridad de imagen? - por Gates siendo dueño en parte de Apple. 

Pero como la historia de la informática ha sido tan oscilante - ¿recuerdan la estrepitosa caída de los .com? -, Apple ha vuelto a resurgir de una manera asombrosa y con ella Steve Jobs, cabe señalar que el pasado 2010, Apple se convirtió en la segunda empresa con más valor en el mundo - 267.000.000.000 US -.

Volviendo al film, al finalizar se muestra en 1997 a Jobs nuevamente en Apple - después de más de una década -... durante esos años no perdió el tiempo ya que compró  Pixar a Geroge Lucas en 1985 y fundó NeXT. El 2006 se convirtió en accionista mayoritario de Disney quien compró Pixar. Y lo de iPhone, iPad, MacBook etc ya es sabido y en desarrollo.

Una última de las frases memorables: (Steve Wozniak trabajaba para Hewlett Packard en los '70 que tenía exclusividad sobre sus creaciones, en este caso su prototipo de la Apple I)...

"¿Para qué quiere la gente (común) un ordenador?" (1976)... su proyecto fue rechazado.

Ver la película online (español)