How Steve Jobs Changed Education

As the world mourns the passing of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, it’s understandable why we feel this collective loss. As one 20-year-old girl put it, Steve Jobs was the Walt Disney of our generation. Steve Jobs literally changed the world and the way we connect and communicate. Though he wasn’t a perfect student and ended up dropping out of college, his inventions have left a big impact on education.

iTunes U. Designed for universities and schools, iTunes U is the easiest way to distribute information to students and faculty through the iTunes platform to be downloaded to your computer. Professors can post their lectures online in a snap, making this a step towards blended learning. But it’s not just for college students. Universities like Stanford, Yale, and MIT have free educational content available to the public to further lifelong learning.

Digital Textbooks. As an alternative to the printed textbook which takes up precious natural resources, the iPad (designed with the education sector in mind) is being introduced in many schools nationwide as a replacement to textbooks. Not only will schools be able to save money in the long run, students will be able to dynamically interact through technology.

Fonts. As Jobs relates during his Stanford Commencement speech for the graduating class of 2005, after dropping out of college, he decided to take a calligraphy class where he developed a keen fascination for the different typefaces. Years later when he helped create the first Macintosh computer, much of what he learned in his calligraphy class was integrated into the design. Since Windows went onto copy the Mac, had it not been for Jobs taking that class, we may have never had the elegant typography we have now. As he said, ”Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.” (Click here for more inspiring Steve Jobs quotes and life lessons.)

Thanks to Jobs’ legacy, we have been given technology that has given the world something in common and helped bring its collective population closer together.