There are a ton of online courses out there. There is a course for everything.

Here are some techniques that I have used in the last twenty years to learn things.

1. Watching Youtube videos with youtube influencers.
2. AI
3. Elearning courses.

One: My thoughts on Youtube Influencers teaching their favourite topic

A lot of youtube videos which are supposed to be educational are just “influencer showing off” videos.

On your end, no actual learning occurs. You are just watching somebody show you how awesome they are and how much they know. My least favourite way to learn anything on earth is through an online influencer or online expert.

Please trust me. I know. I am a teacher. I know a little something about learning and development.

If I have a squeaky door in my house and need to know how to get the squeaking to stop, YouTube is great for this. In-depth learning, not so much.

I have watched many a video from online “language learning influencers” where they were just showing off their lifestyle and their travels and their whatever under the guise of teaching.

After a while it is just content.

Two: My thoughts on AI as a learning technique.

Generally speaking, when I am doing one of my assignments, get stuck and decide to ask AI for help, that assignment ends up taking two hours longer than usual.

I wanted to say to Chat GPT the other day, “I am amazed at the confidence with which you give wrong answers” but I didn’t want to be negative in our conversation.

So I kept it to myself.

Based on the amount of incorrect information I have received from Chat GPT, I wouldn’t really trust it to teach me anything with accuracy.

Three: My Thoughts on Elearning courses online

A lot of elearning courses out there are one big “information dump.”

Nobody comes out and says it, but it’s just “Let me dump a whole bunch of information into your head.Two weeks from now you won’t remember it but that’s not my problem.”

I believe that every elearning course should have a mandatory followup up component.

Otherwise, anything learned will be quickly forgotten.

I recently purchased a WordPress plugin that does that very thing. It allows you to send followup quizzes every few days after you’ve taught someone something.

Having taken and created elearning courses, I truly believe this should be mandatory.

The good thing about the course that I am taking is that at least you get several practice opportunities.

However, recently I’ve implemented my own follow up program .

I started with cue cards And will add a few other follow-Up techniques.

About a week ago, I really struggled with an assignment.

It made me wonder if I know even know what I’m doing.

So far I’ve been doing the activities and passing the tests but knowing what you’re doing is another story.

When somebody throws a project at you that’s when you realize, do I really understand grid? Do I really understand flexbox? Do I really know how to get this item into this spot? Do I really know how to make a menu behave how I want it to behave? Do I know the difference between fixed and sticky?

So I went and got some cue cards and started writing out some of my code snippets on cue cards that I can refer to from time to time.

After a few minutes I started testing the code I was writing out.

This was a big help.

I think that when I finish CSS I will not jump into java the next day.

I will take a few days to reinforce some of these topics.

Or I will take a few days to reinforce the system that I am going to use to continually reinforce these topics.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me this is essential.

I have to make sure that I really understand what I am doing.

I started January 13th. Today is March 11th. I shouldn’t expect to know what I am doing in two months. However, that is the aim. That may seem like stating the obvious, however it is not for two reasons.

1. Several years ago it was quite common for someone to graduate from a computer science degree program and not know how to code.
2. I saw a story on Reddit about a guy who took and passed every course in my program. Yet he did not have the confidence to apply for a developer job. I look at that as a cautionary tale.

I want to know and understand what I am doing. That is why I have a few files on my computer with the word “Why” in them.

That’s because I want to know what I am doing and why I am doing it.

So the next thing I have to make time for this week is to really nail down my learning reinforcement system.

That is the system by which I remind myself of everything in the information dump every few days.

The difference between internet learning and classroom learning

I speak french.

The reason why I speak French is because I had real human teachers in a real classroom teach me how to speak French over several years.

It stuck.

The difference with internet learning is that you just have to work a little harder to make sure that it sticks.