The New Learning Process

The tagline for this blog is, “Making the Web Work for You” which is absolutely my mission and ultimate goal. The decision that I had to make, however, was whether to jump right into the heavy stuff, have a basic clinic, introduce myself, etc. Since this is something that is completely new to me, I was very unsure about how one goes about starting their blog. What I’ve decided to do it give you a background into who I am and how I got to this point, but to do it in a way that you, hopefully, will learn something.

So all of that being said, welcome to my blog, and welcome to ‘The New Learning Process’. For me, the process of how a person acquires information has always been somewhat of an obsession. Since the first time I picked up a Harry Potter book (which is a story for another day), my own mind has runneth over with ideas and creative thoughts, but how does this all happen? This curiosity blossomed into a full-blown career path that ended up dropping me in a over-priced, under-air-conditioned classroom in Baltimore learning how to be a teacher.

In true, liberal, teacher fashion, one of the first lessons that we were taught is that students all learn different ways and you, as the arbiter of learning, must cater to all of these different learning styles and make the lessons interesting. Tall order. What I figured out after graduation, one March day (in another under-air-conditioned classroom in Baltimore) is that if a student isn’t into Shakespeare, it doesn’t matter how you teach it and how much passion you teach it with, learning just isn’t going to happen. We, in the Education Community, have known this for years of course, but the difference is what students need to know: IT’S OKAY! You’re not broken because your heart doesn’t flutter when you hear about the Civil War. It’s okay that you never found pleasure in derivatives (whatever those are). So, what is a student to do when 70-80% of their daily schedule bores them to tears? Self-Directed Learning.

We live in a wonderful age of information. Not only is the entire of human history, math, and science cataloged on the internet, most of it is available for free, and there are multi-billion dollar companies trying to make it easier to find. No longer are the works of Nietzsche and Frost enigmas reserved for the wealthy; relegated to some stuffy library covered in ivy. I now can just Google, “what’s the show with the stoner dudes on Comedy Central?” and without hesitating my answer (Workaholics) is hand-delivered to me. Now, I’m sure you don’t need me to recap the entire history of the Internet and search…just yet, but you can’t deny that this technology has brought us to a golden age for self-directed learning.

This brings me to the beautiful beach picture that I included at the top of this post. I took it. I’m very proud of it too, and that’s the entire point. I’ve never taken a photography class in my life but I was able to not only take a well-composed picture, but follow up with strong editing and post-processing to make it the compelling photo you see. I say this, not to toot my own horn (okay, maybe a little), but to bring attention to the fact that all I did was start with a simple Google search: “How do I get started with photography?” This lead me to articles about the best cameras, websites for sharing and critiquing photos, and pages of photography theory. With every page, I found more and more gaps in my knowledge, so that would lead to another Google search: “What does DSLR stand for?” and so on. Soon, I knew enough to head out to Best Buy, get a camera within my low low budget, as well as Adobe’s Lightroom (which is awesome by the way), and start shooting.

I’m sure almost everyone has experienced this at some point. I call it the internet vortex. It usually happens on Wikipedia, when you just wanted to know what year the Steelers won their first Super Bowl and you end up reading about how Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s death led to the first World War. I think that this is the way that learning should be; find something you’re interested in and  learn everything you can as quickly as you can. It’s a process that Eli Dourado, in his blog ‘The Umlaut’, calls ‘Binge Learning’ (though I doubt he is the first to use the term). Dourado says,

“Online education, if we do it right, could be like having an exceptionally well-rounded personal tutor who is willing to indulge any interest at any level of desired intensity. If I had had such a tutor as a child in lieu of formal schooling, I am confident I would have grown to love him—and I would have learned more rapidly” –Link to the Article

Websites such as Code Academy and Khan Academy, personal favorites of mine, are redefining the learning process by taking learning from being a movie, viewed passively, to a play where you’re the protagonist. A bit of a cheesy metaphor, but it holds true.

So, go out and learn how to make your own kite, change your own oil, code a website, or throw a football; the Internet is waiting like an eager puppy to give you all of its information and to make you a better learner.

I’m going to be updating this blog at least once a week so Follow me on Twitter Follow @AnthonyJ_Online
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