Computers can teach kids, says Apple co-founder

Technology is getting to the point where devices are built today that have all the sensors humans have -- of movement, eyesight and hearing, although they are still far from replacing human teachers, he said.

"We're getting closer to where you can make devices that become a friend and not just a computerised textbook," he told chip engineers at an event in Silicon Valley on Tuesday.

Wozniak, who founded Apple Computer in 1976 with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne, said education systems have not adapted to children's needs, with schools adhering to a top-down teaching philosophy. “If you had 30 teachers in a class with 30 students, they'd all get individual attention and be moving at their own paces," Wozniak said. "So I think someday a computer could possibly be a teacher."

One qualification that Wozniak brings to his thoughts on education: he secretly taught elementary school for eight years.

"School in itself is pretty much a restrictive force on creativity.  That is not the way of the future,” he said. "Lot of kids get lost in our school system."

The lifelong hands-on engineer, who stopped working for Apple in 1987, but is still on the payroll, serves as chief scientist for start-up Fusion-io, which says its technology speeds up data processing.

Wozniak was key in building the Apple I and Apple II computers that helped revolutionise personal computing. Popularly knows as "Woz," he gained most of his engineering knowledge from his father and from tinkering with computers late into the night in his bedroom."I never had a textbook for this stuff," he said.