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I almost always only learn things that I can immediately apply afterwards, because otherwise I find I don't retain enough useful knowledge that I have to go thr
by Joeri 9y ago
I almost always only learn things that I can immediately apply afterwards, because otherwise I find I don't retain enough useful knowledge that I have to go through the same learning resources again by the time I need the knowledge.
I have two learning modes. When I first come across a new topic, e.g. hadoop, I will go broad and skim as many learning materials as I can to get an idea of the lay of the land. Once I feel confident I have a handle on the major parts and technologies involved, I'll switch to the second learning mode and work through the subjects / technologies one by one by searching online for "best way to learn X", figuring out what the common denominator is, and then working my way through that while taking notes in onenote.
The note-taking is crucial for retention as well as keeping track of salient points (it's all in a onenote notebook, so I can find something relevant again even if I don't recall the particular book it was in).
What I wish existed was a sort of wikipedia for learning, keeping track of every subject / technology and giving a reference to the best learning materials in a crowd-sourced way. Right now learning sites focus on their own content, but it's not always the best, and it is not crowd-sourced. The best hits for learning resources are usually stackoverflow or quora links, but neither are the right format for such a thing.
- majewsky 9y ago> I almost always only learn things that I can immediately apply afterwards, because otherwise I find I don't retain enough useful knowledge that I have to go through the same learning resources again by the time I need the knowledge. This. A friend of mine (senior sysadmin on a different team) has ranted about how his boss put tasks like "Learn Docker" in his list of goals for the year. First, such a task is hilariously underdefined. Second, if you're not going to apply the knowledge, it will be forgotten within a few weeks, and time spent studying it will be wasted.
- gregw134 9y agoWe definitely need a well designed website or search engine for learning materials. I've wanted an algorithmic way to figure out the most useful websites to learn a topic. Perhaps if you had data on which websites users bookmarked, you could cluster websites by topic and also figure out which sites are bookmarked by beginners and which sites are bookmarked by experts. Of course a simple crowd-sourced upvoting system might work just as well.
- dpedu 9y ago>What I wish existed was a sort of wikipedia for learning I write (private) wiki pages for myself when learning a new tool or tech. However, I think the process of taking in information and rewriting it in my own words is more valuable than the wiki pages themselves. Plus it's a handy way to store relevant links and brush up on a topic if I don't engage with it for awhile.
- raybb 9y agoWhat tool do you use to make your private wiki pages?