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Steve Wozniak announces tech education platform Woz U

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Re: Steve Wozniak announces tech education platform Woz U

#71

Post by tonydiv »

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 :)

Re: Steve Wozniak announces tech education platform Woz U

#72

Post by rib3ye »

Arjuna wrote: post #68
agumonkey wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woz likes teaching I'd be surprised he sold his name for nothing else but money.

"Woz likes teaching I'd be surprised he sold his name for nothing else but money." I feel the same way. This is part of what he had to say in a comment [1] he wrote in 2013, discussing the then-released Jobs film. It absolutely speaks volumes about his character: "And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to…

The issue isn't money, it's his idealism that leads to gullibility. For example, check out his involvement with a multi-level marketing scheme called "People Helping People". I'm sure Woz loves the idea of a low cost universal education source, but he often skips the diligence required to figure out if these things are scams or not.

Re: Steve Wozniak announces tech education platform Woz U

#73

Post by mtrimpe »

ShabbosGoy wrote: post #60
kpwagner wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a big heart. A few years ago Steve gave an interview with Patrick Bet-David, which was simply a marketing piece for Patrick's company, PHP Agency. PHP Agency is a financial firm founded on the power of "network marketing". The idea behind network marketing is to turn your social network into pyramid, positioning yourself at the top of the pyramid. I don't like network marketing companies, and I believe they ar…

> The idea behind network marketing is to turn your social network into pyramid, positioning yourself at the top of the pyramid. Isn't this the idea behind Patreon?

Patronage [1] is the idea behind Patreon.

Viewed as a pyramid it's one that goes only one level deep and markets only yourself as a worthy cause to support ;-)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage

Re: Steve Wozniak announces tech education platform Woz U

#75

Post by agumonkey »

rib3ye wrote: post #72
Arjuna wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Woz likes teaching I'd be surprised he sold his name for nothing else but money." I feel the same way. This is part of what he had to say in a comment [1] he wrote in 2013, discussing the then-released Jobs film. It absolutely speaks volumes about his character: "And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to…

The issue isn't money, it's his idealism that leads to gullibility. For example, check out his involvement with a multi-level marketing scheme called "People Helping People". I'm sure Woz loves the idea of a low cost universal education source, but he often skips the diligence required to figure out if these things are scams or not.

More than a naive lack of check, what I meant is that Woz clearly explained he loved teaching the beauty of engineering, so I'd expect he would be part of the board and teachers.

Re: Steve Wozniak announces tech education platform Woz U

#76

Post by startupdiscuss »

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.

Re: Steve Wozniak announces tech education platform Woz U

#77

Post by taheca »

jonsen wrote: post #47
mosselman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? How is teaching kids math different from teaching older kids CS and data science? I am curious, not trolling.

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.

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?

Re: Steve Wozniak announces tech education platform Woz U

#78

Post by leadingthenet »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #76

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…

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