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First, the salon FAQ is here. Second, please remember the topic is a starting point. If we digress from learning to raccoons, 80's music, or physics - that's fine!
So I'm thinking a lot about learning lately, in the interests of not stagnating. Learning for professional environments, learning for the home, learning for the self. I'm interested in your views, tools, etc.
How do you fit learning into life? (Do you think you should fit ongoing learning into life?) Do you dive deep into a few subjects, skim the surface of a lot, or a mix? What motivates you to learn something new?
For myself, lately, I am tackling a variety of topics and contexts.
First, I am really trying hard to learn more cooking skills. This is not as easy as it ought to be; I love producing a good result, but I don't actually enjoy the process of cooking, which makes failures rather frustrating. I can follow a recipe - usually - but improvisation is beyond me. So at the moment I am slowly working my way through the book The 4-Hour Chef, which someone recommended. I don't always care for any given item, but I can at least execute the instructions so far, and I've started doing minor improvisations with a bit more confidence.
It's really hard to make time for that sort of thing while raising two children and holding down a job. Raising the boys is an education in itself, but not the kind you can structure or plan for completely! :)
What I'm also doing, besides on the job study of whatever technologies are relevant, is taking not-for-credit college courses through Coursera. Most of the courses give a certificate of accomplishment if you do well enough, but they don't provide true college credit. Which is fine. I'm not going for a degree, I'm trying to learn more things.
What I love about it is that I can download lectures to my phone and listen to them on my commute. And that hour and a half two hours of lost time in my day suddenly has a purpose. I've tried this before with audio books, but a lot of the time audio books don't work for me; and they cost money. These are free, and they feel more like lectures.
It doesn't work for all classes. I'm not watching the videos, so if the visual is necessary rather than an assistance, I can't follow along. Some classes have supplemental readings that outweigh the lectures in terms of time needed. Some have extensive homework. In some cases I just audit, listening to the lectures and skipping the rest. (Hello, my current Climate Change course!) In others, I drop the course when I realize it. (Sorry, Gamification.) If the topic is very interesting to me or very relevant to my work or life, I rework my schedule to fit it in (hi, Design!), but that's rare.
I love this. I'm not sure how long it will stay free - they do charge for a "signature track" (validated certificate), but I doubt that's a sustainable business model. And when it's not free, there may be a lot of things that I'd choose to take now that I'd skip, depending on price. I'll have to see what they come up with. But as a way of studying, it's fairy useful for the flow of my life.
Some of what I study and pick up is directly relevant to my job (design/user interface; networked software patterns), others just because they interest me or I'd like to grow my knowledge in that direction (climate change; a public speaking course, where I'm as interested in how they do that via an online platform as in the course itself).
Additional Notes
Feel free to digress or meander as you're moved - please try to leave the conversation as good as or better than you found it. The Salon FAQ has more info on how to reply if you want to and don't have a LiveJournal account.
For those who are intrigued by and not aware of Coursera, there are also EdX, Udacity, and iTunes U. I have so far personally had the best luck with Coursera, and I think they presently have more courses, but my experience may not be your experience and all that. And I last compared them about six months ago, so they also may have changed in that time.
So I'm thinking a lot about learning lately, in the interests of not stagnating. Learning for professional environments, learning for the home, learning for the self. I'm interested in your views, tools, etc.
How do you fit learning into life? (Do you think you should fit ongoing learning into life?) Do you dive deep into a few subjects, skim the surface of a lot, or a mix? What motivates you to learn something new?
For myself, lately, I am tackling a variety of topics and contexts.
First, I am really trying hard to learn more cooking skills. This is not as easy as it ought to be; I love producing a good result, but I don't actually enjoy the process of cooking, which makes failures rather frustrating. I can follow a recipe - usually - but improvisation is beyond me. So at the moment I am slowly working my way through the book The 4-Hour Chef, which someone recommended. I don't always care for any given item, but I can at least execute the instructions so far, and I've started doing minor improvisations with a bit more confidence.
It's really hard to make time for that sort of thing while raising two children and holding down a job. Raising the boys is an education in itself, but not the kind you can structure or plan for completely! :)
What I'm also doing, besides on the job study of whatever technologies are relevant, is taking not-for-credit college courses through Coursera. Most of the courses give a certificate of accomplishment if you do well enough, but they don't provide true college credit. Which is fine. I'm not going for a degree, I'm trying to learn more things.
What I love about it is that I can download lectures to my phone and listen to them on my commute. And that hour and a half two hours of lost time in my day suddenly has a purpose. I've tried this before with audio books, but a lot of the time audio books don't work for me; and they cost money. These are free, and they feel more like lectures.
It doesn't work for all classes. I'm not watching the videos, so if the visual is necessary rather than an assistance, I can't follow along. Some classes have supplemental readings that outweigh the lectures in terms of time needed. Some have extensive homework. In some cases I just audit, listening to the lectures and skipping the rest. (Hello, my current Climate Change course!) In others, I drop the course when I realize it. (Sorry, Gamification.) If the topic is very interesting to me or very relevant to my work or life, I rework my schedule to fit it in (hi, Design!), but that's rare.
I love this. I'm not sure how long it will stay free - they do charge for a "signature track" (validated certificate), but I doubt that's a sustainable business model. And when it's not free, there may be a lot of things that I'd choose to take now that I'd skip, depending on price. I'll have to see what they come up with. But as a way of studying, it's fairy useful for the flow of my life.
Some of what I study and pick up is directly relevant to my job (design/user interface; networked software patterns), others just because they interest me or I'd like to grow my knowledge in that direction (climate change; a public speaking course, where I'm as interested in how they do that via an online platform as in the course itself).
Additional Notes
Feel free to digress or meander as you're moved - please try to leave the conversation as good as or better than you found it. The Salon FAQ has more info on how to reply if you want to and don't have a LiveJournal account.
For those who are intrigued by and not aware of Coursera, there are also EdX, Udacity, and iTunes U. I have so far personally had the best luck with Coursera, and I think they presently have more courses, but my experience may not be your experience and all that. And I last compared them about six months ago, so they also may have changed in that time.