Leveraging resources for learning

Learning complex and sometimes esoteric concepts and subjects can be incredibly difficult when you lack either the requisite resources or environment that facilitates education. Luckily, the resources are out there, whether on the internet or accessible through a local public/university library.

edX

Founded by Harvard University and MIT in 2012, edX is an online learning destination and MOOC provider, offering high-quality courses from the world’s best universities and institutions to learners everywhere.^[1]

I stumbled across edX while browsing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) website for learning materials. I signed up within 5 minutes of discovering the website and enrolled in my first course: Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science (MITx - 6.00.2x) led by legendary MIT instructors Eric Grimson, John Guttag and Ana Bell.

I shortly thereafter realized that I was ill-prepared for the course - it was being taught in Python, and my exposure to Python at that point had still been minimal. The course jumps right into complex theory and problem sets, so I would have to get up to speed quickly.

Fortunately, the community of edX and MITx are awesome. There are discussion boards, a Facebook group, Discord server and numerous other resources available for us to work together and help one another.

edX is proving to be an incredible resource. The courses immerse you in the subjects using a combination of lecture, exercises and problem sets all prepared by some of the best educators in the world. I am positive that I will continue to enroll myself in courses long after I have completed both I'm currently in.

Code School

Code School is an online learning destination for existing and aspiring developers that teaches through entertaining content. Each course is built around a creative theme and storyline so that it feels like you’re playing a game, not sitting in a classroom.^[1:1]

I love Code School. I've been a long time paying user. The professors/instructors each bring their own personality and flair to the courses that cover everything from Mobile web design to SVG manipulation to JavaScript best practices and everything in between. Their friendly presentations make, dare I say it, learning fun. Among the particularly incredible: Alyssa Nicoll, Jason Millhouse, Carlos Souza and Gregg Pollack.

The courses aren't meant to exhaustively cover subjects, but instead provide a healthy introduction with hands-on coding that can help to cement the the subjects in your mind. As a paying user, you can access their full library of screencasts, slides/videos from the courses and after each course the professor puts together a wrap up video complete with resources to continue your learning.

Code School is a great way to get yourself oriented with a new language, tool, framework, etc. It helps solve the information overload that can occur when you're just getting started by giving you something very practical to begin with.

to be continued...