learning

  • October 9, 2014

    Learning Italian with my Downtime

    Lately I’ve been driving/traveling a lot, and I have a feeling that will be happening a bit more due to my newfound flexibility in where I can work. It’s been pretty standard that I listen to music or play games (or you know, read a book), but I’ve decided to try something different. See, the New Year’s Resolution I feel I’ve been slacking most on is learning Italian. I haven’t put an ounce of effort into it; that’s going to change. I’ve decided to give Duolingo a try.

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  • June 16, 2014

    Using Hackathons to Learn

    On Wednesday, June 18th, I will begin hosting weekly coding sessions (or short hackathons) in Downtown Scranton. You can read more about them here. There have been a lot questions on what to expect, what people should be doing, and how the sessions will be structured. It’s important to remember that these sessions will really be a way for programmers, designers, and other folks to get together and work on things they want to work on. However, that doesn’t mean that attendees can’t take the time to learn.

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  • June 12, 2014

    Announcing 1085 & a Beginner’s WordPress Workshop

    When the weekly coding sessions were announced, I also alluded to courses, or workshops, that will be taking place at the Launch Pad in Downtown Scranton. I’m very excited  to announce the first one, as well as the venture behind it.

    First, the Workshop: This is one that’s been requested to me personally a few times so I wanted to make it happen as soon as I could. It’s called The Beginner’s Guide to WordPress and it will cover what WordPress is and how to use it, from adding posts to managing users and everything in between. The Workshop will be July 10th, from 6:30-8:30pm and will cost $20. For an extra $27, you can get access to 23 intro videos for WordPress, reinforcing what we talk about in the workshop.

     Get Your Ticket Now! 

    Next is the venture I’ve started to support these workshops, which is called 1085 (https://1085.co/). 1085 is a place for teaching and learning. It’s a place that organizes Workshops & sells Books, and there’s a lot more planned, all in downtown Scranton. You can read more here. Throughout the summer, there will be more workshops and resources added. I’m really excited for what’s in store, and you should be too!

  • June 3, 2014

    How Do I Learn Web Development?

    A couple of years ago, I was on the How to Hold a Pencil podcast (episode here) and we discussed a number of things, including the steps I took to learn web development (over 14 years ago…whoa). I’m often asked, as I was on the show, what I recommend for people starting today. Here’s my answer for 2018.

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  • April 26, 2014

    Don’t be Afraid to Relearn

    Just the other day I picked up a new book called PHP: The Good Parts. I’ve been programming PHP for over 10 years, and the book covers a lot of beginner topics like control structures, variables, etc. However, there is some stuff towards the end that will be of great value. I plan on reading the (short) book cover-to-cover. Why you ask? I feel like I have to; after so many years, there are some things I should relearn the right way.

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  • January 20, 2014

    My One Month Learning Plan

    I have a confession to make. Lately I’ve felt like my skills have been slipping, or at least stagnating. Part of it is because I’ve been so busy, but part of it is because of feeble excuses like, “I’ve been so busy.” This year I’ve resolved to do a whole bunch of things, including learn more. Before I WordCamp Phoenix, I devised a plan that would take place pretty much the moment I landed back in Scranton; WordCamp Phoenix really reinforced I need to do this. So, here is my one month learning plan.

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  • November 27, 2013

    Announcing the TIL Podcast

    til-webA while back, I bought the domain http://tilpodcast.co somewhat on a whim. I had just started listening to podcasts and felt this would be a good theme for one, whatever the that theme may be.  I thought of doing something tech or web development related, but those are a dime a dozen. So I still needed a solid idea for the podcast; then it came to me while talking with two sets of friends on two separate occasions.

    The first one was with my friend Nate, who had mentioned to me that he missed the “academic” conversations he’d have in college since getting a full time job; the more intellectual ones with discussion and debate. That planted the seed. The second one was with a group of friends while we were discussing some recent legislation- there was a lot of back and forth, fact checking, and opinion giving. That’s when the idea solidified. This would be a great idea for the podcast. I pitched the idea to my friends right there and they really liked the idea as well. So with that, the TIL Podcast is:

    A general knowledge podcast where a group of friends get together and discuss current events, news topics, and technology.

    The basic format is this: each week we will have a subject or two and discuss them for about 30-40 minutes (total). We’ll cover what the subject is and some issues surrounding it. We hope to cover a wide gamut of categories from news to tech to whatever seems interesting; we are also up for suggestions.

    We had our first recording earlier this week and it will go live on Sunday, December 1st. The topic is the Coin digital card.  We are all really excited about the podcast and we hope you like it! All of the podcasts, show notes, and more information are up at tilpodcast.co.

     

  • November 10, 2013

    Offering WordPress Workshops

    An idea I had a while ago, around the time I moved back to Scranton, was to offer a WordPress workshop that would show people how to use the platform and possibly how to develop on it. Recently I was approached by some people who were interested in something similar. Now, how to use and develop are two vastly different topics, so I recently sent out a tiny, 2 question survey to get an idea on what kind of workshop would be more popular. You can find it here. I wanted to elaborate a bit on what I had in mind.
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  • April 10, 2009

    What I Learned in College

    College Life

    Over at Nettuts, they’ve posted an article titled, “Should You Attend University for Web Development”. Reading the article, I found it pretty interesting that a lot of people feel college isn’t necessary for web development and that their schools are behind the times when it comes to web development. I’m not going to defend my school and say it’s totally up-to-date, because it’s not. I do feel however, that that’s the nature of the beast when dealing with web development and computer science in general. As I wind down in the Masters program, set to graduate in May, I can tell you these two things after six year of college: the CS program should not be about the what but the how, and college is just as much a social thing as it is an academic thing.

    First, let’s focus on the academics. Computing, no matter what your focus, is an ever changing field. It would be impossible for every school to stay on top of every technology is out there. I’m not being an apologist, I am speaking the truth. The idea should not be, “I’m learning C#,” or “I’m learning PHP.” It should be, “I’m learning how to program, using PHP.” I learned what Object Oriented Programming is and I can apply that to any language. I’ve learned the semantics of an imperative and a declarative language. I learned algorithms, and should be able to implement them as long as I know how certain language behaves, and I’ve learned how to teach myself that. Heck, my school doesn’t even have a web development major, and I consider myself a damn good web developer.

    Beyond that, you learn the social skills you should have whether your profession be computer scientist, web developer, engineer, etc. There is a huge focus in our program on team building and communication. Human interaction isn’t something Google can teach you (yet). In our Masters program (in Software Engineering) we learn about process, eliciting requirements, etc. While you can learn some of this stuff with experience, hearing about it in a classroom certainly expedites the process.

    But college isn’t just about academics. I will attribute a good amount of my social skills, professionalism, and 90% of my connections to going to college. I got involved in extracurriculars, networked, and made some amazing friends that challenged my way of thinking and got me to try new things. Again, that isn’t something you’re going to find on Google.

    College should not just be about teaching you X. It should teach you how to learn. You should get some leassons in being social. It should give you some experiences you can’t get anywhere else. Those who say, “I don’t need to go to college to be X,”  aren’t looking at the big picture and will never be the best at what they do.

  • February 9, 2009

    Learning a new Skill

    Recently I took it upon myself to learn JQuery. I’m toying with the idea of a redesign of both this site and my company’s site, and would like to do some cool stuff. I’ve written before on learning a new programming language but not new skills in general. I’m a big fan of the “learn by doing” approach.

    The web is ubiquitous with tutorial sites (see envato for some great ones), which makes it easy to learn by doing. For JQuery, I will be doing one or two tutorials a week to get myself acquainted with it, then adapt what I learn to my own sites. This has worked well for me in the past- find good tutorials and it should be pretty easy (at least to learn the basics).

    The key is to find some good, linear resources for doing tutorials. While the web is good for finding a specific tutorial to do, if you’re just starting out you should start at the beginning. I’d recommend picking up a book for that. As far as they go, there is no be-all-end-all series for anything. For programming, I like the Absolute Beginner books. For Adobe products, the Classroom in a book series is very good; but it’s really up to you to find something you’re comfortable with.

    I’d say the hardest part is sticking with it. Learning something new can be time consuming and frustrating, especially when you have other things you need to do. However, once you do learn it you’ll be pretty happy you did. 

    Finally, I only touched on resources for computer-based skills because that’s what I know best. If you have some “real life” skill, like how to build a deck, feel free to leave how you learned in the comments!