The following is the post Bill Gates left on his Facebook wall regarding Steve Jobs’ premature demise. “I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work. Steve and I first met nearly 30 years […]
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Hi everyone, I was listening to Q this morning, and heard Jian’s introductory essay, devoted to the life and work of Steve Jobs, who passed away yesterday. It got me thinking of our Founders Parade posts from last week. What a game-changer this guy was. You can hear it here. I was thinking about how […]
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Hi Emily,
I found it interesting how sad I felt about Job’s relatively premature demise, and how much I was reflecting about his accomplishments in the light of an ETEC 522 perspective, as well. Thanks for giving the heads up about Jian’s essay – that is a must download podcast! (Gotta love him -saw him and George S. last Friday at CBC Culture Days <3)
Wish I had 1/1000 of his ability to think outside of the box. Oh! That wasn't a direct jab at PC's! ;-D
thanks,
KJ
Thanks for this shout for Steve.
I was wondering if, a century further down the line, if Jobs will still be a household name like Edison and Einstein? I certainly feel his impact on the world was (& will be) at least as significant, but I’m curious whether society’s capacity or process for embedding greatness has changed? Anyone have thoughts on this? Perhaps it is mostly a function of the school system, and whether Jobs can be curriculumized in effective ways.
Speaking of schools (and I’m inviting irate debate here, perhaps to be championed by our iPad team!), as great as Apple’s devices have been, they never managed to produce an insanely great learning machine or platform. Not that anyone else has either – in almost all cases the primary technologies at use in schools were designed for “office” or “entertainment” applications, not learning. I guess what I’m saying is that I feel the world is radically ready for the Steve Jobs of learning. May s/he join us soon.
I just posed the question, “Do you think Steve Job’s name will be as famous as Einstein’s in 10 years?” in my grade 10 science class. While the majority of the students knew who Jobs was and that he died yesterday, they didn’t think they’d remember his name. One said because the Apple brand wasn’t paired with his name, others said that they knew Einstein, but not what he was famous for, and another said that Jobs didn’t make anything to do with education (I didn’t prompt that!). Does technology move too fast to teach about people? Do people become famous today only if they appear in the media via TV, music, and Youtube?
Interesting discussion!
KJ
Hi Karen, great reflections. I was thinking on this issue too. As technologies are changing so fast and information does change too I am not sure how future generations will see the impact caused by people like Steve Jobs. Today I was discussing with my students of grade 9 how we should think critically about the information we receive through massive media (TV, Youtube, etc).
Hi KJ,
These are interesting responses from your students. I guess they need something to make the connections between the innovator and innovation .It would be interesting to see how they are connecting the dots and answering your question about popularity being based on media exposure. That for the net generation may prove true. For the students you teach, The Ipod or Ipad or Iphone may have been the reason they got to know anything about Steve jobs in the first place. In the case of Eistein, I guess being in a science class may have been the reason they know him even without knowing how come. I wonder though if this is related to learning in traditional mode and learning with technology…
Ifeoma
… or something to do with their science teacher 8-0. Time will tell, I guess!
ttyl
KJ
Interesting post Karen……..ask your Grade 10 students if they know reality stars like Kim Kardashian and the contribution they have made to society. Your answers might very well be different.
I agree that Steve Jobs name is not synonymous with Apple and therefore people have difficulty associating the two. For our project (I am on the iPad team), I researched Steve Jobs and we have a short bio on him and Apple on our Wiki. His management and leadership style had a lot of controversy attached to it. It is said that his employees would not want to ride in the same elevator as him as they feared they may not have a job by the time the elevator door opened again. Management by fear is generally not a good way to go.
His contributions though cannot be debated. He has over 300 patents in his name. He is credited though, not with creating something, as much as taking somebody else’s idea and making it great.
As far as ipad and education goes, the potential is great, but we are not there yet and have a long way to go. Historically, the education system is slow to change and moving forward / change management has always been an issue. The constant upgrading or keeping up with technology is difficult and expensive on a personal level, never mind on a corporate level. What is in this year is history by next, and the public cost is high if we continue down that road within the education institutions.
The question between Edison/Einstein and Jobs is no debate …….we would be typing in the dark if it were not for the aforementioned contributors.
I think, perhaps, that Jobs will be remembered years later for his contribution (or at least change) to how we interact with music (where we get it, how we listen to it, how artists get paid, how bands connect to fans, etc.) more than anything else.
In the Edison vs. Jobs comparison, I noticed Dave Bidini say something rather apropos (albeit a little – characteristically – off-colour) on Facebook today:
“again, respectfully: jobs v edison. no way. edison gave the world light. jobs gave the world milfs. not that i’m not grateful…”
While it’s a little off the mark, I think it at least gets the point across on how monumental Edison’s achievements were compared to other creators of our time. There would be no Jobs without Edison.
Remembered just for the music? Really? How about these products?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Apple_Inc._products
Not sure I understand Bidini’s reference to Jobs gave the world milfs, he sure doesn’t come across as very informed. But I guess that’s the point about whether or not you remember an innovator. Which raises the question, does it matter if an innovator is remember by the masses or not?
Not JUST for his influence on the music industry, but mostly for it. Just my bias, I guess, since I’m a music buff but have never owned an Apple product.
It’s interesting that you remark, David, about Apple not developing a great learning machine or platform (the eMac came to mind!). For me, this is interesting because after my ‘founders parade’ profile of Emantras.com last week, I’ve been revising my position on tablets and learning apps (their learning apps are tremendous). So much so that I’m investigating learning a programming language to add to my skillset as an educational technologist – so that I may develop the ability to program apps.
Where this is going is that while I was initially thinking about learning Objective-C, which is the most widely used language for Apple mobile device apps, I’m now thinking of learning Java, the most widely used language for Android apps (of course, there are now technologies that enable one to program for both at the same time). My hunch is that while Apple is the technology leader that innovated tablets and brought them into the mainstream (and all others seem to be aping the iPhone/iPad) when tablets become increasingly common, it’s most likely – I think – that Android will have the largest market share in education.
(during this time I also lost my iPod touch for about a week, and was *really* missing my apps).
Honestly- I knew his face…but I didn’t know his name until i was researching content for my Entrepreneurship 12 class…
This is the link to his famous Stanford address:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
Maybe he won’t be remembered for his name….but standing in front of Stanford graduates and telling them you don;t need a college degree to succeed takes a lot of guts.
In his speech….I heard him, almost plead the idea that education has to be more open to change. It can’t be restricted, there are no bad ideas….and it is definitely not something to “constrain” people…it needs to be open and flexible and student focused….
His personal story is amazing….and just proves that anyone can do anything is they put their heart and mind to it….
Verena:)
Wow, you didn’t know his name?
I grew up with Apple and thought that Steve Jobs was synonomous. My first thought in response to David’s post was that his name will never be forgotten. How wrong could I be?
I agree with the insights you found in Jobs’ Stanford speech. I had watched this a couple of times in the past and found it very inspirational but I didn’t pick up on how clear his message to the schools is for the need for change. He has planted a seed, or rather many seeds of change. He’s also been responsible for creating some fertile ground for that change in learning institutions to take root which is just as important.
Innovators build on each other. Who knows which new innovators will emerge as a result.
– Julie
I was also shocked by the news that Jobs passed away yesterday. I found it out when I logged on to Facebook. It was a little surprising that all the recent posts were about expressing their condolences. Then, I realized how much Apple (at least iPhone) had affected many people’s lives, including mine. I was also a little concerned and curious at the same time about the future of Apple. Will there ever be a person who is “outside of the box” like Steve Jobs? Will there be new innovative technology tools like iPhone and iPad developed in the future? I hope so. I do believe that, just like us human beings, technologies have evolved for many years and will continue to evolve. Jobs has inspired many of us and his contributions have affected the lives of many people around the world. I hope that there are more contributors to technology like Jobs in the near future.
RIP to Steve Jobs.
Deb
I too am very sorry about Steve’s passing. We have surely lost an innovative stalwart in the technology industry. He has contributed so much. His legacy will definitely live on.
Keisha
This discussion about Steve Jobs is interesting and I wanted to mention 2 things. The first one is a testament to how important he is to so many people. I was exploring my biggest time waster – pintrest and I immediately noticed many images and quotes from Steve Jobs popping up which prompted me to look at the news and find out that he had passed. I was surprised that the world of pintresters had reacted so quickly – a testament to his importance.
My second comment is about the Steve Jobs/ Edison comparison. I don’t think he will be compared to Edison but I have already heard him compared to Henry Ford. Ford created an entire industry around his product and then supplied wages to his workers to buy his product. Steve Jobs created a similar empire surrounding his product. He was certainly a great innovator and a great example for us budding entrepreneurs.
It is so sad whenever someone die but it is worst when an influential person like Steve Jobs dies. I think he will always be remembered for his innovative contribution made to the technology industry.
JK Tomas & Associates Ltd. is a professional learning network company for educational leaders. They are organizing webinars on the following dates. October 6: Active Learning in the Classroom November 10: Technology to Support Teaching and Learning December 1: Developiing a Digital-Rich Curriculum January 12: Must-Have Technology for the Ideal Classroom January 19: Web 2.0 […]
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Here is an interesting website called EmergingEdTech. (http://www.emergingedtech.com/) I found that provides a plethora of articles that make the case for edtech. One I found of particular interest was the article titled Education Technology Is An Enabler, Not a Magic Wand” (September 7, 2011) a short article in response to the NY Times online article “In […]
Continue reading Here is an interesting website called Em… Posted in: Blog Café
Jay, thanks for the links to those articles. And I still consider myself a techie padawan among techie masters.
Some tips about tagging, categories, experimentation, and our A1/A3 assignments.
Continue reading A few coaching comments Posted in: Blog Café
Hi David,
I don’t see the PulsePress feature when I’m reading posts. I saw it for the poll, but not for our comments. Am I missing something?
Emily
PulsePress hasn’t been applied uniformly across all posts (yet).
I was concerned that we didn’t necessarily want a situation where students are rating each others’ posts, both positively and negatively. The “like” feature in many blogs works well, but I’m not sure we also want the “dislike”. What do you think?
I know what you mean… it doesn’t really seem productive to have a dislike feature. Even a ‘like’ might start to give someone a complex, if their posts are not liked very often.
Emily
Before you publish your posting, please make sure that you select a category (eg. Introductions) as well as assign some meaningful tags (keywords).
kstooshnov 10:55 pm on October 7, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Deb,
I recently had a peek at an Apple Store information session at UBC, and was impressed with the legacy Steve Jobs has left behind with the numerous stores opening every nine days around the world. To read Bill Gates’ condolences, especially his admirable comment about being competitors, makes me wonder what computing would have been like if these two friends worked together for the past thirty years, but that ship has sailed :-/
One more innovation that needs commenting upon is Steve’s other business, reinventing the film industry with Pixar Studio. This great article does a great job summarizing his contribution to the best-made animation in the last decade and a half. While I am sure other studio heads are drafting their sympathetic statements, Variety’s David Cohen (quoted in the article) says it best: “the influence that Steve Jobs had on Hollywood has not even been fully realized…He was a master at disruptive technologies.”
Deb Kim 6:06 pm on October 8, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the information. To tell you the truth, Steve Jobs and Apple have never occurred to be my interest until recently when I saw his speech on TV. But even after that, what I liked about Apple is its products, not Steve Jobs. No matter what other people say, I do believe that his contribution to technologies and animation is amazing. I’m curious if Apple and Microsoft can still be competitors after Jobs’ passing.
Deb