Computers have certainly aided learning in recent years, but they haven't yet fostered the promised revolution in education that has been discussed for over 40 years, according to Apple cofounder, educator, and all-around geek Steve Wozniak. Woz made the comments during a keynote discussion at Abilene Christian University's Connected Summit last week, discussing his views on the use of technology in education and the need to adapt teaching and learning to be more effective. According to Woz, we need to focus more attention on younger students before they begin to adopt a perception that they are "failures."

"Education has always been a big part of my life," Wozniak told the assembled crowd, which included Connected Summit attendees from nine different countries and a large contingent of ACU students and faculty. Woz discussed his early fascination with computers and logic circuits, which led to his participation in the Homebrew Computer Club at Stanford in the 1970s.

Woz designed and built what would eventually become the Apple I computer, so he shared his design with the Homebrew club. "I built that thing to help everyone in the club understand how to make their own computer," he said. (It was Steve Jobs who convinced Woz to turn it into a product, which led to the founding of Apple in 1976.) Woz was intensely shy, and, like many geeks, socially awkward. "But I found that I could build these computers and show them to people, and they would want to talk to me about them," he explained. "It was a language I could speak."

"The Homebrew Computer Club—we were a revolution," Woz said. The group believed that technology could help bring about social changes, improve learning through interaction, and foster global communication. "We talked about sending messages over modems, and people all over the word could read them," he said.

"But that was 40 years ago. Leaders come out all the time and say that we need to raise more creative thinkers, but never changed anything [in the education process] to actually help foster creativity."

Education needs a change

Woz talked about how children often get discouraged at an early age over the concept of "being a failure." The very regimented way in which schools teach can lead to such a judgment at an early age. Young kids who are told they are wrong often enough will quickly adopt an attitude that they can't do any better, so why bother trying?

"By third grade, teachers can pick out the kids that have given up," Woz said. "Students can get discouraged, and then never try to excel in later grades. First-, second-, and third-graders need more attention than they are getting."

Woz was skeptical about whether sufficient change would come about anytime soon, even though most problems in our education system are well known. "My whole life, [leaders] have been talking the same way, so I don't know how soon it will change," he said. But change it should. "We need to teach kids how to learn.

"If you can motivate a student to want to learn, that's so much more important that what's in the book," Woz continued. "I had this pastime—I fell in love with computer logic. Any fifth-grader can understand the stuff in 99 percent of digital electronics. And in fifth grade I made myself this challenge to try and design computers using less chips. So I had this challenge, and that motivated me."

But Woz has more than just his own learning experience to shape his opinions—for eight years he volunteered as a teacher in San Jose, and he spent that time teaching computer skills and programming to fifth-graders. One key takeaway from the experience: "It wasn't important what I taught, but how I taught it," he said. Because he was a volunteer, Woz had far more latitude to experiment in the classroom than other teachers. "I had the freedom to teach things [the students] didn't learn right in ways I thought were better."

Personalized learning was a key part of Woz's technique. Students learned best when they were exploring topics that interested them, which led to independent discovery and better retention of knowledge. "Every student is different," he said. We should "let them go in directions they want to at the pace they are comfortable with."

But we have to be prepared to support those students with resources, including necessary attention from teachers and mentors, Woz said. "Class size was also important. When classes were too big, some students could hide out or whatever," getting lost in the shuffle.

Woz also questioned the need to always have students in groups throughout the school day. "Some students are like me; they can learn on their own. Some students might need to be around their friends," Woz said. "But maybe we need to have some stations where students can go off on their own and discover things. And we still need teachers, but maybe we need them to go around and make sure students are on the right direction, and help give them a little push here and there."

Technology's role in education

Woz also shared some thoughts on how technology can better enhance the learning process. "What if a computer could be a teacher?" he said. "Computers can't replace the human element, but they can enable personalized learning that still gives students competency. And mobile computing with devices like the iPhone and iPad have changed things entirely—"now you have a computer with you all the time."

As far as the future of textbooks was concerned, Woz wasn't sure what is in store. "They always said when we started developing personal computers that we would get away from paper," Woz said. "But that never really happened. Twenty years from now, are we going to have books? I don't know. But will they be books like what we have now? I don't think so."

"It seems like this change should have happened already. Like the iPad, you should be able to toss your backpack and just have all your books on it. But we're not quite there yet. The cost has to be less. Publishers don't necessarily have to profit less, but the costs should be less."

Woz believes that computers and computer devices still have room for improvement. In particular, Apple has always tried to reduce the complexity of computing, with the iPad representing a current pinnacle of that thinking. "Learning how to use a computer, I hate that," Woz said. "I like a simple life; I want people's lives to be more simple."

One example that Woz discussed was the Newton's "assist" feature. By writing out a simple note, such as "dinner with Ed next Tuesday" and tapping the assist button, the Newton OS would automatically create a calendar entry with that information. "It was free form—I could think it, and the Newtown could just do it," he explained.

"Speech, now, I think is the future," Woz said. "I use my iPhone to make a reservation, just speaking into it. I don't like steps, I just want it to do it. I think we're getting close to that." Such features rely on what Woz called "robust design." Systems with robust design can accept a wide range of input that all cause the same output.

"Instead of adapting to machines, machines should adapt to us," he said. Instead of spending time learning the technology, then, we can spend more time putting it to use.

Woz's last bit of advice for educators and students was to embrace technology as it evolves. "Be brave, use the new technology, because it's going to change our lives so much."