EdSurge:

People love to try guess what Apple is up to—that’s true for the company’s education strategy as well. But often there’s not much to go on beyond press releases and speculation.

So when Apple’s longtime vice-president of education, John Couch, published a book this year with his thoughts on the future of education and accounts of his work at Apple, it opened a rare window into the company’s views on education.

It offers some anecdotes about how Steve Jobs thought about computers in education, including how he referred to computers as an “amplifier for intellect” the same way a bicycle amplifies the physical push of the rider. In the book, Couch writes that Jobs predicted this mental bicycle would “allow us to go beyond—to discover, create and innovate like never before.”

But the book is also full of Couch’s frustration at the slow pace of change in schools. He argues that the machines Apple builds are still not being used to their full potential in education.

My wife works in the education system and she echoes a lot of this frustration.