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Steve Wozniak announces tech education platform Woz U

578 points by _nh_ 9y ago

peter303 9y ago
Some people dont know Woz spent some years as an elementary school math teacher after leaving his full time Apple job. So he as insight as a teacher.
- KekDemaga 9y ago
  Man I wish he was my math teacher, I probably would of been much more engaged back then.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    > I probably would of Your english teacher wasn't very engaging either, I guess?
- sjroot 9y ago
  While I'm sure Woz would make a fantastic teacher, I don't think experience teaching kids elementary math would really give anyone insight into teaching CS/data science topics.
  - mosselman 9y ago
    Why not? How is teaching kids math different from teaching older kids CS and data science? I am curious, not trolling.
    - jonsen 9y ago
      You can't teach children proper mathematics. That's what's different. Children are not in general ready for math before 8'th or 9'th grade. That's why they are just pestered with arithmetic until the majority becomes numberfobes. And then have difficulties with real mathematics later.
      - taheca 9y ago
        I have not seen that data point before, children not being ready for math until 8/9 grade. Where did you learn that/see that?
        KGIII 9y ago
        I'm a mathematician. I have taught mathematics, albeit briefly, at the university level. I disagree with the person you responded to, but want to thread this here. Mathematics can be taught at early ages. Unfortunately, we tend to teach mathematics by rote. We teach arithmetic and not mathematics. What we could be doing is teaching mathematics as a language. Mathematics is a language, it's an expressive language that relies on logic. Like any language, it is unconstained by reality and can be used to express concepts and ideals. In conjunction with other languages, it can express complexities and trivialities. Unfortunately, we never seem to teach kids why, but simply teach them the method. We teach them a process, by rote and enforcement. We don't encourage discovery, nor do we try to explain the totality. In part, I believe, this is due to many who give instruction not actually having the knowledge to do so. Tempting as this is to turn this into a novella, I'll try for brevity. It is true that mathematics isn't an easy subject, but a part of that difficulty comes from the way in which we teach it.
        DelightOne 9y ago
        Are Problems where you use the Theory enough? How many? All uses or just some? If not Problems, maybe modify the Theory a little and show which Problems are unsolvable now? Are those two in the Why included? What else do you think should be included? Regards.
        KGIII 9y ago
        I am not sure I understand your questions. So, I will try to answer them. If you feel my answers aren't adequate, feel free to ask more detailed questions. No, problems where someone uses a theory isn't enough. They should understand why they use it and know what alternatives exist. They should be able to process this linguistically. Basically, "The problem is this and I want to solve this problem this way, because this way gives me the resulting information needed." They should know as much as they can, it should be progressive and taught like we teach languages. Mathematics isn't just a language for solving problems, it can express problems just as easily. Absolutely, people should be encouraged to try different things. Much like we are encouraged to write an essay, we should encourage people to compose a story with mathematics and it's very much okay to mix it with a second language. Physics is such a thing. In physics, you use both mathematics and your language to expresss and prove. Without both math and a traditional language, some concepts aren't able to be expressed. This is why published papers contain both text and math. I am not sure about your 'why.' The why is to enable more people to understand the language of mathematics and to enable them to use it to their advantage. I think that it can be done by increasing exposure and teaching it with greater complexity. It's fine to memorize addition and subtraction tables, but understanding the concepts behind those things is more important. To be fair, for a short while, we do sort of teach it as a language. This fades out and becomes rote. In early education, we will teach with an abacus and countable objects. We will teach the less than and greater than as a fish that eats the bigger number. Eventually, that stops and concepts aren't considered while memorizing rules is. I will share a brief story... I hated mathematics. I absolutely hated it. I didn't understand it. I just did what I was told and gave the answers because I followed instructions. When I was in sevent grade, I was working on problems which required me to return the area of right triangles. My teacher had stood behind me for some time, I'm not sure how long, before they spoke up. I remember exactly what they said, to this very day. "You know, all you have to do is square those triangles, find the area, and divide that number in half." That one instant, my life was permanently altered. At that moment in time, it all clicked. It wasn't easy from there on out. It wasn't a magic moment where I understood everything. No, it was the moment that I understood that it was a language and that there were many ways to say the same thing. It was that moment when I actually understood that the symbols where actually telling a story. It was that moment when I realized that it was expressing an idea, a concept, and that it was descriptive. I still stay in touch with that teacher, though they are old and frail. Had it not been for them, my life would be very different. Had it not been for them, for that moment in time, for that effort to make clear, I'd be a very different person. Most of us can probably have that moment, but little instruction is given that allows for it. We aren't given the chance to see math as a language that is as rich as it is. If we want people to excel at math, we need to find a way to give them that moment.
    - jsjohnst 9y ago
      As someone who’s taught Algebra to 7th grade kids using functional programming concepts building their own game, I agree, there’s significant overlap. The course plan I used is available[0] if interested. [0] http://bootstrapworld.org http://bootstrapworld.org
  - alexasmyths 9y ago
    ", I don't think experience teaching kids elementary math would really give anyone insight into teaching CS/data science topics." ? I couldn't imagine any better or more relevant experience than that. Teaching in the real-world probably gives you quite a lot of insight into the nature of learning. Math is pretty close to CS, of course, CS is a 'branch' of Math!
- craftyguy 9y ago
  there's a huge difference between developing and teaching curriculum for elementary school math, and developing and presenting curriculum for an online education system that extends beyond elementary school age and elementary school math.
erikj 9y ago
Sounds a lot like the name of the Nintendo's gaming console.
calimac 9y ago
Techcrunch - can't serve up page. https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/13/steve-wozniak-announces-tech-education-platform-woz-u/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/13/steve-wozniak-announces-te...
godzillabrennus 9y ago
Glad to see Woz working on this problem. He has such a legendary reputation in the tech world for his engineering skills but few know of his passion for education. I hope this ends up being a large part of his legacy.
vikp 9y ago
Although it would be unfortunate if this was the case, this paragraph from the about page (https://woz-u.com/about/ https://woz-u.com/about/) leads me to think that this is just using Steve Wozniak's name for branding: Inspired by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, we specialize in technology and career-based programs designed to get people into the workforce quickly and affordably...Led by higher education experts, Exeter Education, students will learn the skills necessary to take flight within the technology industry. It looks like Woz U is affiliated with Exeter Education and Southern Careers Institute. Exeter Education appears to be a new company in Arizona (more info at http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/tech/2017/10/12/steve-wozniak-wants-revolutionize-tech-education-starting-arizona-woz-u/759226001/ http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/tech/2017/10/1... and https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2017/04/14/former-grand-canyon-university-exec-planning.html https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2017/04/14/former-g...). Southern Careers Institute (http://www.scitexas.edu/ http://www.scitexas.edu/) seems to be a vocational school of sorts. Neither of these are bad things, but they temper the initial excitement I had around "Steve Wozniak is launching an online education platform."
- robotfactory 9y ago
  I can't imagine a guy like The Woz allowing his name to be associated with something sub-par which he has no control over. He understands the importance and weight of his personal brand.
  - jpttsn 9y ago
    So Woz’ strengths are marketing etc.? Always seemed that was precisely the part he didn’t play too well.
  - usrusr 9y ago
    Can't announce it without taking a bit of a leap of faith, because there can't be a track record before announcement. Intentions are easy, execution is hard. Few bad schools started off with "bad" as a founding principle.
    - 9y ago
thoughtexprmnt 9y ago
No real mention here of what will differentiate this from existing "tech education platforms".
- vthallam 9y ago
  I mean at this point, it's hard to differentiate when you are launching a training school. I think they are like completely banking up on the Woz name to get students and companies use their services.
  - jonwachob91 9y ago
    We are only saying that b/c everyone is now doing the codecadmy/treehouse/codeschool style of training, with a slight twist. I'd expect if a guy like Woz is jumping behind it, it should be INNOVATIVE. A new method of training that is better than what we have today. Similar to how code school/treehouse/codecademy were innovative 5 years ago.
    - orb_yt 9y ago
      Any thoughts on what that would look like? I'm very much a fan of bite sized lessons (think Duolingo style), but am curious to how well that would translate to other subjects.
adam12 9y ago
It seems out of character for Steve to use his name like this.
- jonny_eh 9y ago
  I hope it means he really believes in it.
- neurotech1 9y ago
  As mentioned by peter303 above, Steve Wozniak is an experienced elementary school teacher.
  - duxup 9y ago
    I'm not sure that means he is or isn't selling his name.
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  The product endorsement thing worked out pretty well for Mavis Beacon. ;) http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/31/technology/next-they-ll-say-betty-crocker-isn-t-real-either.html?pagewanted=1 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/31/technology/next-they-ll-sa... ''I remember, at Comdex in 1987, walking around and having some of the competitors from two of the original typing products come up to me and say: ''What a coup! How did you get Mavis Beacon to endorse your product? We've been after her endorsement for years.' '' Mr. Abrams chuckled. ''And when they did that, I knew we had a hit.''
ankyth27 9y ago
Would be more appreciated if fortunate people like WOZ could do something good for non-code fields as well. There are already a lot of platforms which teach all of these. I respect WOZ for everything but I think there are more opportunities/problems in other fields of education as well. Am I missing something?
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Nah, MOOCs hold a lot of promise for other areas of study, but they definitely are not totally there yet. They seem to be pretty good in 'soft' fields that don't have much hands-on applications, but still pretty terrible for things like electrical/mechanical engineering or embedded development. Like, I'm interested in making things so that my code can interact with the real world, so I tried Coursera's embedded development class. Holy hell. It was awful. Way worse than a lot of free youtube tutorials I've watched, and they were charging money. The course files flat-out did not work. The course VM with the cross-compilation toolchain and everything was incapable of booting; good thing those things are easy to install. The assignments told you to do different things from the grading criteria; I wound up erring on the super generous side with grading, especially since the lectures were often largely unrelated to the tasks. And there was no embedded platform involved at all, full stop. In a months-long course. I learned much more in a week with Google and a $10 ST Nucleo board. That's where online education could still use a lot of work, IMO. The sort of thing that requires lab segments. And to be fair to Coursera, that's a tough thing to get right. It would be nice if they actually verified that they were selling courses that functioned at all, and that soured me personally to their platform, but at least you can get a refund. They also have a power electronics class I was interested in, but there's no chance in hell I'd risk it now. I don't mind throwing a few hundred dollars and hours after education, but that stuff is potentially really dangerous and I don't want to risk getting it wrong because a lecture on transformer winding wasn't vetted...
  - GlennS 9y ago
    I did the MITx Circuits and Electronics unit online and it was pretty good. The platform was a lot more advanced than Coursera's, including a little circuit designer tool with various probes and things.
hourislate 9y ago
Scott Galloway was saying Apple should take it's war chest and disrupt the educational system. Start an Apple University where the skills required for tomorrows jobs can be acquired. Would be great if you could get Amazon, MS, Apple, facebook, etc on board to start the revolution in education.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 9y ago
  You mean, like Facebook University? https://www.facebook.com/careers/university/fbu https://www.facebook.com/careers/university/fbu Frankly, I have to say I'm skeptical. I don't see what makes them suitable or incentivized to create a real school, rather than a pipeline into their businesses.
  - orb_yt 9y ago
    That looks to be just an internship.
- duxup 9y ago
  What would that even look like?
- alphaalpha101 9y ago
  Except they don't have the talent, the knowledge, or the incentives to educate people properly. They have the incentive to create a job pipeline for their own companies. Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook have exactly one thing in common: they're all big tech giants that exploit workers.
vyrotek 9y ago
I was surprised to read that Woz U will be based out of Arizona. That's pretty cool.
- rconti 9y ago
  How so?
sjroot 9y ago
Honestly this seems very "meh." Like others have said, I am getting the vibe that Steve (or some other company) is using the name to attract attention to a very unremarkable product. > Woz U will offer an app to help people understand which field of tech they’re best suited for, so they can set up their curriculum accordingly. If you follow that link, you can see a very (very) poorly-designed application that is built by a company called Coder for Rent, LLC. This doesn't really invoke a sense of confidence for me - sounds like someone with an idea just reached out to the first app development team they could find. However, looking into this company, they have a website: https://www.coderforrent.com https://www.coderforrent.com. Following that link will redirect you to the organization I am guessing is teaming up with Woz for this: Coder Camps, with offices in Redmond and Scottsdale. Steve Wozniak is not listed anywhere on the "Team" page on Coder Camps' website, so this has to be some kind of business partnership. I believe that even more after seeing the page for the Woz U application in the App Store: the first 'screenshot' is his image covering the screen. Below his face is one of his quotes: "Wherever smart people work, doors are unlocked." I get the vibe that I am supposed to think all of the smart people will be using Woz U because "Steve co-founded Apple!" Anyway...back to work.
- neurotech1 9y ago
  Fair criticism. It's quite possible that Woz considers this a MVP and not the pinnacle of MOOC platforms. Its also possible that Woz isn't going to be part of the regular faculty, as great as that would be. IMHO the course structure and content, is more important than the platform code details.
  - sjroot 9y ago
    I agree with the last point 100%. It seems that this Coder Camps company has experience running different programs in full stack development and data science, so I imagine they know what they're doing.
- IBM 9y ago
  That's exactly what's happening here [1]. John Sculley stays in the press in the same way. In fact he got another hit just today [2]. [1] https://www.techinasia.com/talk/steve-wozniak-walking-billboard-hire https://www.techinasia.com/talk/steve-wozniak-walking-billbo... [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-best-recruiter-apple-ceo-2017-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-best-recruiter-app...
Rotdhizon 9y ago
Unfortunately, this education is no different(or better) than the education you can receive at any of dozens of colleges around the country that teach the exact same thing without the branding hype. Looking through the computer support curriculum, nothing is original or new. It's just the same old thing every other college teaches for the same course. No new spin or intuitive way to teach it.
tryingagainbro 9y ago
Will My Trump University credits transfer to this one?
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  Most will. My credits on securing large credit reporting companies did not.
mikerg87 9y ago
Hard to see this without thinking about Steve Wozniak University. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Steve_Wozniak_University.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Steve_Wozniak_Un...
- icebraining 9y ago
  Folklore.org is such a great site, almost every story is a gem. Just clicking on the next left me with a smile on my face.
muthdra 9y ago
It should be called "Woz up?"
- cgijoe 9y ago
  U WOZ M8?
kbutler 9y ago
How will this not get pronounced "Wazoo"? Though initial criticism of the name "iPad" died pretty quickly.
IBM 9y ago
Wozniak has been a rampant self-promoter for years so this isn't a surprise to me at all. He'll put his name on anything. https://www.techinasia.com/talk/steve-wozniak-walking-billboard-hire https://www.techinasia.com/talk/steve-wozniak-walking-billbo...
- kal444 9y ago
  The article seems harsh. Maybe he just likes toys.
- mgiannopoulos 9y ago
  Given the nature of the Internet (mostly everything is public and you can focus to whatever part of someone's online activity you want), everybody can seem like a rampant self-promoter these days.
exogeny 9y ago
It's a shame that his 1981 plane crash robbed both Steve and the world of the full use of one of the greatest engineering minds that has ever lived. A lot of people who know him personally - and I know of them personally, so it's second-hand corroboration to be clear - say he was never anywhere close to the same after the accident.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  You shouldn't imply such things without being willing to share the source. Also, changes in personality do not automatically mean changes in intellect.
  - exogeny 9y ago
    You're weirdly inferring two things that I didn't come close to saying. Again, while I don't know him personally, I hold in great regard people that do and am simply relaying what they've told me, which is that whatever the nature of the change happened, be it personality or intellect or interests or whatever, it set him on a different path and likely robbed all of us of whatever the fruits of his previous path would have borne.
    - ionised 9y ago
      You feel robbed by that?
deleted 9y ago
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arsalanb 9y ago
Okay, there are a lot of comments here about various things but what struck out to me was that on the website it says Woz U will help students "get into the workforce quicker" but their curriculum doesn't really cover any CS. It covers things that help you build stuff using "hip" tools and languages, but not things like algorithms, data structures, etc. My question is, is this really all it takes to get a job in a startup/tech company? Would YOU hire somebody who just knew these things?
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  > Would YOU hire somebody who just knew these things? For an intern / very junior position, yes. For anything else, no.
- tedmiston 9y ago
  Most bootcamp grads go to big cos, especially outside of tech, and mostly not to startups.
- toast0 9y ago
  Skipping theory (and liberal arts) is certainly going to get you prepared for an entry level programming job. It's not going to get you prepared for most interviews, though. I like to think I'm a decent engineer; I have a BS in Computer Engineering, but I use very little from most of the classes I took to get that. Actually, my most in demand skills seem to be systems level debugging, which wasn't discussed in any courses; it's something I've learned on the job, because it was never in any of my courses. Some of the courses don't get used often, but it is nice to have seen topics, so if they come up, I know it's something that's been studied, and I just have to find it again. A straight-up occupational training in programming is going to leave you without a lot of that, unfortunately.
shawndrost 9y ago
Woz U seems to be (at least in part) a rebranding of SCI/Coder Camps. From the footer at https://woz-u.com/ https://woz-u.com/: "Part of SCI" From http://www.scitexas.edu/programs/full-stack-javascript/ http://www.scitexas.edu/programs/full-stack-javascript/: "SCI-tech Academy’s 3-week Coding From Scratch course provides free prerequisite training in coding basics, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript basics for those who have little to no coding experience." From https://www.codercamps.com/coding-from-scratch/ https://www.codercamps.com/coding-from-scratch/: "New to software? Start with Coding From Scratch Courses" From https://woz-u.com/curriculum-software-development/ https://woz-u.com/curriculum-software-development/: "SWD100 | Coding From Scratch" (Full disclosure: my company is a competitor to Coder Camps.)
- samstave 9y ago
  I just love how the HN community says "huh, yeah let me verify that" and basically pulls the wool off the eyes... So, fuck you, you beautiful tech community and I love you, you horrific tech community.. This is literally what democratization of actual information looks like.
- mgiannopoulos 9y ago
  What would be the problem of this? Are there any issues with Coder Camps?
salqadri 9y ago
I thought this was a great initiative by Woz, until I read the tech accelerator part; I'm worried about the focus on making money off of this.
deleted 9y ago
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ShabbosGoy 9y ago
I'd like to see something like this for Physics cirricula. As a software engineer, I've always felt my physics background is lacking. Can anyone recommend a decent physics learning platform that starts from QM first principles and then goes to more complex topics?
- JosephLark 9y ago
  It isn't exactly a platform, but it sounds like you would be well served by The Theoretical Minimum [0]. The courses [1] start at classical mechanics, but the second one is QM and builds from there. They are all taught by Leonard Susskind, who is a fairly big name in the field. There are two books available specifically tied to The Theoretical Minimum [2], but I'm not sure how they related or tie into the video lectures as I have not read them myself. [0] http://theoreticalminimum.com http://theoreticalminimum.com [1] http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses [2] http://theoreticalminimum.com/references http://theoreticalminimum.com/references
jdmoreira 9y ago
I checked the curriculum and was so disappointed that it didn't start with 6502 assembly :/
jtokoph 9y ago
I checked Woz's twitter feed to see if he mentioned this at all (which he didn't) and noticed that he gives accurate location updates constantly. Even which hotel room he's in. https://twitter.com/stevewoz https://twitter.com/stevewoz
- adambyrtek 9y ago
  It's probably because he uses Swarm (which is basically rebranded Foursquare checkins) connected to his Twitter account.
tonydiv 9y ago
I'm really excited to see where this goes given I'm in the industry too! That said, I am skeptical of the background of this company and the quality of instruction/curriculum. For anyone interested in K-12 coding education, I have been working on a project called BlockSchool. We connect students ages 6-13 with teachers from top colleges and companies via video chat. We have developed a fun 3D block-based world where everything is programmable. We already have students in 4 countries! If you're interested in a free trial, email me at tony@block.school with Hacker News in the subject line :)
yvsong 9y ago
Should be named WoZu.
startupdiscuss 9y ago
This is so much pressure on Woz to maintain his name that I am afraid he may never do anything again (if he reads HN). He is just a (from the looks of it -- I don't know him) nice, thoughtful, successful person. But he is just a human being. He can't magically make an educational system that makes you study front-end frameworks anymore than the 1000s of other nice, thoughtful people can do that. The learner still has to sit down and apply themselves and there is no magic around that.
- leadingthenet 9y ago
  He's a sellout. Slapping his name on random things does not a good product make.
godelski 9y ago
The real question is, do we call it "Wazoo" or "Waz you"?
- hbosch 9y ago
  Not to be confused with "Wazzu", or, Washington State University. https://www.google.com/search?q=wazzu https://www.google.com/search?q=wazzu
convexja 9y ago
If getting "complete" software engineering training today amounts to learning a popular JS framework, HTML, and CSS...we're in big trouble. Any company exploiting this dogma and convincing folks who don't know any better to pay tens of thousands of dollars and leave their job for 3-5 months should be ashamed of themselves. I'm not, for the record, against people learning any of these things. But for those who bought into the idea that it's enough to make them competitive in the job market today will get a rude awakening in the next couple years.
BlackEspresso 9y ago
Finally it's true: http://37prime.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Futurama-s06e09-The-Clockwork-Origin-Wozniak-Nerd-Academy.jpg http://37prime.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Futurama-...
ireallydonot 9y ago
Is he very selfish person or just a hero ?
deleted 9y ago
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throwaway7645 9y ago
If I didn't trust Woz, I'd say it reminds me too much of when Trump U happened.

578 points by _nh_ 9y ago

Some people dont know Woz spent some years as an elementary school math teacher after leaving his full time Apple job. So he as insight as a teacher.

KekDemaga 9y ago
Man I wish he was my math teacher, I probably would of been much more engaged back then.
- matt4077 9y ago
  > I probably would of Your english teacher wasn't very engaging either, I guess?
sjroot 9y ago
While I'm sure Woz would make a fantastic teacher, I don't think experience teaching kids elementary math would really give anyone insight into teaching CS/data science topics.
- mosselman 9y ago
  Why not? How is teaching kids math different from teaching older kids CS and data science? I am curious, not trolling.
  - jonsen 9y ago
    You can't teach children proper mathematics. That's what's different. Children are not in general ready for math before 8'th or 9'th grade. That's why they are just pestered with arithmetic until the majority becomes numberfobes. And then have difficulties with real mathematics later.
    - taheca 9y ago
      I have not seen that data point before, children not being ready for math until 8/9 grade. Where did you learn that/see that?
      - KGIII 9y ago
        I'm a mathematician. I have taught mathematics, albeit briefly, at the university level. I disagree with the person you responded to, but want to thread this here. Mathematics can be taught at early ages. Unfortunately, we tend to teach mathematics by rote. We teach arithmetic and not mathematics. What we could be doing is teaching mathematics as a language. Mathematics is a language, it's an expressive language that relies on logic. Like any language, it is unconstained by reality and can be used to express concepts and ideals. In conjunction with other languages, it can express complexities and trivialities. Unfortunately, we never seem to teach kids why, but simply teach them the method. We teach them a process, by rote and enforcement. We don't encourage discovery, nor do we try to explain the totality. In part, I believe, this is due to many who give instruction not actually having the knowledge to do so. Tempting as this is to turn this into a novella, I'll try for brevity. It is true that mathematics isn't an easy subject, but a part of that difficulty comes from the way in which we teach it.
        DelightOne 9y ago
        Are Problems where you use the Theory enough? How many? All uses or just some? If not Problems, maybe modify the Theory a little and show which Problems are unsolvable now? Are those two in the Why included? What else do you think should be included? Regards.
        KGIII 9y ago
        I am not sure I understand your questions. So, I will try to answer them. If you feel my answers aren't adequate, feel free to ask more detailed questions. No, problems where someone uses a theory isn't enough. They should understand why they use it and know what alternatives exist. They should be able to process this linguistically. Basically, "The problem is this and I want to solve this problem this way, because this way gives me the resulting information needed." They should know as much as they can, it should be progressive and taught like we teach languages. Mathematics isn't just a language for solving problems, it can express problems just as easily. Absolutely, people should be encouraged to try different things. Much like we are encouraged to write an essay, we should encourage people to compose a story with mathematics and it's very much okay to mix it with a second language. Physics is such a thing. In physics, you use both mathematics and your language to expresss and prove. Without both math and a traditional language, some concepts aren't able to be expressed. This is why published papers contain both text and math. I am not sure about your 'why.' The why is to enable more people to understand the language of mathematics and to enable them to use it to their advantage. I think that it can be done by increasing exposure and teaching it with greater complexity. It's fine to memorize addition and subtraction tables, but understanding the concepts behind those things is more important. To be fair, for a short while, we do sort of teach it as a language. This fades out and becomes rote. In early education, we will teach with an abacus and countable objects. We will teach the less than and greater than as a fish that eats the bigger number. Eventually, that stops and concepts aren't considered while memorizing rules is. I will share a brief story... I hated mathematics. I absolutely hated it. I didn't understand it. I just did what I was told and gave the answers because I followed instructions. When I was in sevent grade, I was working on problems which required me to return the area of right triangles. My teacher had stood behind me for some time, I'm not sure how long, before they spoke up. I remember exactly what they said, to this very day. "You know, all you have to do is square those triangles, find the area, and divide that number in half." That one instant, my life was permanently altered. At that moment in time, it all clicked. It wasn't easy from there on out. It wasn't a magic moment where I understood everything. No, it was the moment that I understood that it was a language and that there were many ways to say the same thing. It was that moment when I actually understood that the symbols where actually telling a story. It was that moment when I realized that it was expressing an idea, a concept, and that it was descriptive. I still stay in touch with that teacher, though they are old and frail. Had it not been for them, my life would be very different. Had it not been for them, for that moment in time, for that effort to make clear, I'd be a very different person. Most of us can probably have that moment, but little instruction is given that allows for it. We aren't given the chance to see math as a language that is as rich as it is. If we want people to excel at math, we need to find a way to give them that moment.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    As someone who’s taught Algebra to 7th grade kids using functional programming concepts building their own game, I agree, there’s significant overlap. The course plan I used is available[0] if interested. [0] http://bootstrapworld.org http://bootstrapworld.org
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  ", I don't think experience teaching kids elementary math would really give anyone insight into teaching CS/data science topics." ? I couldn't imagine any better or more relevant experience than that. Teaching in the real-world probably gives you quite a lot of insight into the nature of learning. Math is pretty close to CS, of course, CS is a 'branch' of Math!
craftyguy 9y ago
there's a huge difference between developing and teaching curriculum for elementary school math, and developing and presenting curriculum for an online education system that extends beyond elementary school age and elementary school math.

erikj 9y ago

Sounds a lot like the name of the Nintendo's gaming console.

calimac 9y ago

Techcrunch - can't serve up page. https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/13/steve-wozniak-announces-tech-education-platform-woz-u/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/13/steve-wozniak-announces-te...

godzillabrennus 9y ago

Glad to see Woz working on this problem. He has such a legendary reputation in the tech world for his engineering skills but few know of his passion for education. I hope this ends up being a large part of his legacy.

vikp 9y ago

Although it would be unfortunate if this was the case, this paragraph from the about page (https://woz-u.com/about/ https://woz-u.com/about/) leads me to think that this is just using Steve Wozniak's name for branding: Inspired by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, we specialize in technology and career-based programs designed to get people into the workforce quickly and affordably...Led by higher education experts, Exeter Education, students will learn the skills necessary to take flight within the technology industry. It looks like Woz U is affiliated with Exeter Education and Southern Careers Institute. Exeter Education appears to be a new company in Arizona (more info at http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/tech/2017/10/12/steve-wozniak-wants-revolutionize-tech-education-starting-arizona-woz-u/759226001/ http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/tech/2017/10/1... and https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2017/04/14/former-grand-canyon-university-exec-planning.html https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2017/04/14/former-g...). Southern Careers Institute (http://www.scitexas.edu/ http://www.scitexas.edu/) seems to be a vocational school of sorts. Neither of these are bad things, but they temper the initial excitement I had around "Steve Wozniak is launching an online education platform."

robotfactory 9y ago
I can't imagine a guy like The Woz allowing his name to be associated with something sub-par which he has no control over. He understands the importance and weight of his personal brand.
- jpttsn 9y ago
  So Woz’ strengths are marketing etc.? Always seemed that was precisely the part he didn’t play too well.
- usrusr 9y ago
  Can't announce it without taking a bit of a leap of faith, because there can't be a track record before announcement. Intentions are easy, execution is hard. Few bad schools started off with "bad" as a founding principle.
  - 9y ago

thoughtexprmnt 9y ago

No real mention here of what will differentiate this from existing "tech education platforms".

vthallam 9y ago
I mean at this point, it's hard to differentiate when you are launching a training school. I think they are like completely banking up on the Woz name to get students and companies use their services.
- jonwachob91 9y ago
  We are only saying that b/c everyone is now doing the codecadmy/treehouse/codeschool style of training, with a slight twist. I'd expect if a guy like Woz is jumping behind it, it should be INNOVATIVE. A new method of training that is better than what we have today. Similar to how code school/treehouse/codecademy were innovative 5 years ago.
  - orb_yt 9y ago
    Any thoughts on what that would look like? I'm very much a fan of bite sized lessons (think Duolingo style), but am curious to how well that would translate to other subjects.

adam12 9y ago

It seems out of character for Steve to use his name like this.

jonny_eh 9y ago
I hope it means he really believes in it.
neurotech1 9y ago
As mentioned by peter303 above, Steve Wozniak is an experienced elementary school teacher.
- duxup 9y ago
  I'm not sure that means he is or isn't selling his name.
DonHopkins 9y ago
The product endorsement thing worked out pretty well for Mavis Beacon. ;) http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/31/technology/next-they-ll-say-betty-crocker-isn-t-real-either.html?pagewanted=1 http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/31/technology/next-they-ll-sa... ''I remember, at Comdex in 1987, walking around and having some of the competitors from two of the original typing products come up to me and say: ''What a coup! How did you get Mavis Beacon to endorse your product? We've been after her endorsement for years.' '' Mr. Abrams chuckled. ''And when they did that, I knew we had a hit.''

ankyth27 9y ago

Would be more appreciated if fortunate people like WOZ could do something good for non-code fields as well. There are already a lot of platforms which teach all of these. I respect WOZ for everything but I think there are more opportunities/problems in other fields of education as well. Am I missing something?

leggomylibro 9y ago
Nah, MOOCs hold a lot of promise for other areas of study, but they definitely are not totally there yet. They seem to be pretty good in 'soft' fields that don't have much hands-on applications, but still pretty terrible for things like electrical/mechanical engineering or embedded development. Like, I'm interested in making things so that my code can interact with the real world, so I tried Coursera's embedded development class. Holy hell. It was awful. Way worse than a lot of free youtube tutorials I've watched, and they were charging money. The course files flat-out did not work. The course VM with the cross-compilation toolchain and everything was incapable of booting; good thing those things are easy to install. The assignments told you to do different things from the grading criteria; I wound up erring on the super generous side with grading, especially since the lectures were often largely unrelated to the tasks. And there was no embedded platform involved at all, full stop. In a months-long course. I learned much more in a week with Google and a $10 ST Nucleo board. That's where online education could still use a lot of work, IMO. The sort of thing that requires lab segments. And to be fair to Coursera, that's a tough thing to get right. It would be nice if they actually verified that they were selling courses that functioned at all, and that soured me personally to their platform, but at least you can get a refund. They also have a power electronics class I was interested in, but there's no chance in hell I'd risk it now. I don't mind throwing a few hundred dollars and hours after education, but that stuff is potentially really dangerous and I don't want to risk getting it wrong because a lecture on transformer winding wasn't vetted...
- GlennS 9y ago
  I did the MITx Circuits and Electronics unit online and it was pretty good. The platform was a lot more advanced than Coursera's, including a little circuit designer tool with various probes and things.

hourislate 9y ago

Scott Galloway was saying Apple should take it's war chest and disrupt the educational system. Start an Apple University where the skills required for tomorrows jobs can be acquired. Would be great if you could get Amazon, MS, Apple, facebook, etc on board to start the revolution in education.

deleted 9y ago
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icebraining 9y ago
You mean, like Facebook University? https://www.facebook.com/careers/university/fbu https://www.facebook.com/careers/university/fbu Frankly, I have to say I'm skeptical. I don't see what makes them suitable or incentivized to create a real school, rather than a pipeline into their businesses.
- orb_yt 9y ago
  That looks to be just an internship.
duxup 9y ago
What would that even look like?
alphaalpha101 9y ago
Except they don't have the talent, the knowledge, or the incentives to educate people properly. They have the incentive to create a job pipeline for their own companies. Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook have exactly one thing in common: they're all big tech giants that exploit workers.

vyrotek 9y ago

I was surprised to read that Woz U will be based out of Arizona. That's pretty cool.

rconti 9y ago
How so?

sjroot 9y ago

Honestly this seems very "meh." Like others have said, I am getting the vibe that Steve (or some other company) is using the name to attract attention to a very unremarkable product. > Woz U will offer an app to help people understand which field of tech they’re best suited for, so they can set up their curriculum accordingly. If you follow that link, you can see a very (very) poorly-designed application that is built by a company called Coder for Rent, LLC. This doesn't really invoke a sense of confidence for me - sounds like someone with an idea just reached out to the first app development team they could find. However, looking into this company, they have a website: https://www.coderforrent.com https://www.coderforrent.com. Following that link will redirect you to the organization I am guessing is teaming up with Woz for this: Coder Camps, with offices in Redmond and Scottsdale. Steve Wozniak is not listed anywhere on the "Team" page on Coder Camps' website, so this has to be some kind of business partnership. I believe that even more after seeing the page for the Woz U application in the App Store: the first 'screenshot' is his image covering the screen. Below his face is one of his quotes: "Wherever smart people work, doors are unlocked." I get the vibe that I am supposed to think all of the smart people will be using Woz U because "Steve co-founded Apple!" Anyway...back to work.

neurotech1 9y ago
Fair criticism. It's quite possible that Woz considers this a MVP and not the pinnacle of MOOC platforms. Its also possible that Woz isn't going to be part of the regular faculty, as great as that would be. IMHO the course structure and content, is more important than the platform code details.
- sjroot 9y ago
  I agree with the last point 100%. It seems that this Coder Camps company has experience running different programs in full stack development and data science, so I imagine they know what they're doing.
IBM 9y ago
That's exactly what's happening here [1]. John Sculley stays in the press in the same way. In fact he got another hit just today [2]. [1] https://www.techinasia.com/talk/steve-wozniak-walking-billboard-hire https://www.techinasia.com/talk/steve-wozniak-walking-billbo... [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-best-recruiter-apple-ceo-2017-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-best-recruiter-app...

Rotdhizon 9y ago

Unfortunately, this education is no different(or better) than the education you can receive at any of dozens of colleges around the country that teach the exact same thing without the branding hype. Looking through the computer support curriculum, nothing is original or new. It's just the same old thing every other college teaches for the same course. No new spin or intuitive way to teach it.

tryingagainbro 9y ago

Will My Trump University credits transfer to this one?

bitmapbrother 9y ago
Most will. My credits on securing large credit reporting companies did not.

mikerg87 9y ago

Hard to see this without thinking about Steve Wozniak University. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Steve_Wozniak_University.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Steve_Wozniak_Un...

icebraining 9y ago
Folklore.org is such a great site, almost every story is a gem. Just clicking on the next left me with a smile on my face.

muthdra 9y ago

It should be called "Woz up?"

cgijoe 9y ago
U WOZ M8?

kbutler 9y ago

How will this not get pronounced "Wazoo"? Though initial criticism of the name "iPad" died pretty quickly.

IBM 9y ago

Wozniak has been a rampant self-promoter for years so this isn't a surprise to me at all. He'll put his name on anything. https://www.techinasia.com/talk/steve-wozniak-walking-billboard-hire https://www.techinasia.com/talk/steve-wozniak-walking-billbo...

kal444 9y ago
The article seems harsh. Maybe he just likes toys.
mgiannopoulos 9y ago
Given the nature of the Internet (mostly everything is public and you can focus to whatever part of someone's online activity you want), everybody can seem like a rampant self-promoter these days.

exogeny 9y ago

It's a shame that his 1981 plane crash robbed both Steve and the world of the full use of one of the greatest engineering minds that has ever lived. A lot of people who know him personally - and I know of them personally, so it's second-hand corroboration to be clear - say he was never anywhere close to the same after the accident.

ZenoArrow 9y ago
You shouldn't imply such things without being willing to share the source. Also, changes in personality do not automatically mean changes in intellect.
- exogeny 9y ago
  You're weirdly inferring two things that I didn't come close to saying. Again, while I don't know him personally, I hold in great regard people that do and am simply relaying what they've told me, which is that whatever the nature of the change happened, be it personality or intellect or interests or whatever, it set him on a different path and likely robbed all of us of whatever the fruits of his previous path would have borne.
  - ionised 9y ago
    You feel robbed by that?

deleted 9y ago

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arsalanb 9y ago

Okay, there are a lot of comments here about various things but what struck out to me was that on the website it says Woz U will help students "get into the workforce quicker" but their curriculum doesn't really cover any CS. It covers things that help you build stuff using "hip" tools and languages, but not things like algorithms, data structures, etc. My question is, is this really all it takes to get a job in a startup/tech company? Would YOU hire somebody who just knew these things?

jsjohnst 9y ago
> Would YOU hire somebody who just knew these things? For an intern / very junior position, yes. For anything else, no.
tedmiston 9y ago
Most bootcamp grads go to big cos, especially outside of tech, and mostly not to startups.
toast0 9y ago
Skipping theory (and liberal arts) is certainly going to get you prepared for an entry level programming job. It's not going to get you prepared for most interviews, though. I like to think I'm a decent engineer; I have a BS in Computer Engineering, but I use very little from most of the classes I took to get that. Actually, my most in demand skills seem to be systems level debugging, which wasn't discussed in any courses; it's something I've learned on the job, because it was never in any of my courses. Some of the courses don't get used often, but it is nice to have seen topics, so if they come up, I know it's something that's been studied, and I just have to find it again. A straight-up occupational training in programming is going to leave you without a lot of that, unfortunately.

shawndrost 9y ago

Woz U seems to be (at least in part) a rebranding of SCI/Coder Camps. From the footer at https://woz-u.com/ https://woz-u.com/: "Part of SCI" From http://www.scitexas.edu/programs/full-stack-javascript/ http://www.scitexas.edu/programs/full-stack-javascript/: "SCI-tech Academy’s 3-week Coding From Scratch course provides free prerequisite training in coding basics, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript basics for those who have little to no coding experience." From https://www.codercamps.com/coding-from-scratch/ https://www.codercamps.com/coding-from-scratch/: "New to software? Start with Coding From Scratch Courses" From https://woz-u.com/curriculum-software-development/ https://woz-u.com/curriculum-software-development/: "SWD100 | Coding From Scratch" (Full disclosure: my company is a competitor to Coder Camps.)

samstave 9y ago
I just love how the HN community says "huh, yeah let me verify that" and basically pulls the wool off the eyes... So, fuck you, you beautiful tech community and I love you, you horrific tech community.. This is literally what democratization of actual information looks like.
mgiannopoulos 9y ago
What would be the problem of this? Are there any issues with Coder Camps?

salqadri 9y ago

I thought this was a great initiative by Woz, until I read the tech accelerator part; I'm worried about the focus on making money off of this.

deleted 9y ago

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ShabbosGoy 9y ago

I'd like to see something like this for Physics cirricula. As a software engineer, I've always felt my physics background is lacking. Can anyone recommend a decent physics learning platform that starts from QM first principles and then goes to more complex topics?

JosephLark 9y ago
It isn't exactly a platform, but it sounds like you would be well served by The Theoretical Minimum [0]. The courses [1] start at classical mechanics, but the second one is QM and builds from there. They are all taught by Leonard Susskind, who is a fairly big name in the field. There are two books available specifically tied to The Theoretical Minimum [2], but I'm not sure how they related or tie into the video lectures as I have not read them myself. [0] http://theoreticalminimum.com http://theoreticalminimum.com [1] http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses [2] http://theoreticalminimum.com/references http://theoreticalminimum.com/references

jdmoreira 9y ago

I checked the curriculum and was so disappointed that it didn't start with 6502 assembly :/

jtokoph 9y ago

I checked Woz's twitter feed to see if he mentioned this at all (which he didn't) and noticed that he gives accurate location updates constantly. Even which hotel room he's in. https://twitter.com/stevewoz https://twitter.com/stevewoz

adambyrtek 9y ago
It's probably because he uses Swarm (which is basically rebranded Foursquare checkins) connected to his Twitter account.

tonydiv 9y ago

I'm really excited to see where this goes given I'm in the industry too! That said, I am skeptical of the background of this company and the quality of instruction/curriculum. For anyone interested in K-12 coding education, I have been working on a project called BlockSchool. We connect students ages 6-13 with teachers from top colleges and companies via video chat. We have developed a fun 3D block-based world where everything is programmable. We already have students in 4 countries! If you're interested in a free trial, email me at tony@block.school with Hacker News in the subject line :)

yvsong 9y ago

Should be named WoZu.

startupdiscuss 9y ago

This is so much pressure on Woz to maintain his name that I am afraid he may never do anything again (if he reads HN). He is just a (from the looks of it -- I don't know him) nice, thoughtful, successful person. But he is just a human being. He can't magically make an educational system that makes you study front-end frameworks anymore than the 1000s of other nice, thoughtful people can do that. The learner still has to sit down and apply themselves and there is no magic around that.

leadingthenet 9y ago
He's a sellout. Slapping his name on random things does not a good product make.

godelski 9y ago

The real question is, do we call it "Wazoo" or "Waz you"?

hbosch 9y ago
Not to be confused with "Wazzu", or, Washington State University. https://www.google.com/search?q=wazzu https://www.google.com/search?q=wazzu

convexja 9y ago

If getting "complete" software engineering training today amounts to learning a popular JS framework, HTML, and CSS...we're in big trouble. Any company exploiting this dogma and convincing folks who don't know any better to pay tens of thousands of dollars and leave their job for 3-5 months should be ashamed of themselves. I'm not, for the record, against people learning any of these things. But for those who bought into the idea that it's enough to make them competitive in the job market today will get a rude awakening in the next couple years.

BlackEspresso 9y ago

Finally it's true: http://37prime.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Futurama-s06e09-The-Clockwork-Origin-Wozniak-Nerd-Academy.jpg http://37prime.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Futurama-...

ireallydonot 9y ago

Is he very selfish person or just a hero ?

deleted 9y ago

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throwaway7645 9y ago

If I didn't trust Woz, I'd say it reminds me too much of when Trump U happened.