technology

Learning how to learn … again

~ ihatetoast ~ Leave a comment

I have learned many things. I have also forgotten many things. To avoid the latter, I pay attention to how I do the former.

One of the hardest things to learn how to learn is programming. German? Study. Flip those 1990 3×5 flash cards. Flip through that Duden. Do a junior year abroad in Germany and Austria. Read texts in German. Write to German-speaking friends. Workbooks. Texts. You know. Writing, editing, and proofreading skills? A little study and a lot of doing. Read. Know your style guides. Write a lot. Go over and improve your writing. So much rinse-lather-repeating. There was a lot of learning about < insert topic here > before engaging in < insert aforementioned topic here >, and even then I am learning as I do. I get feedback from those I’m writing to or talking with. I have decades of texts and journals to refer to and learn from. I’m in classes. I have several professors at once. All that worked for me with what I’ve studied before. It does not work for me as I learn programming and coding.

I’ve done two coding boot camps: one focused on front-end development, the other on the MERN stack in a full-stacky sort of way. Please. I hate the term “full-stack” as much as I hate “Renaissance men”. Look. Listen. Look and listen. You can’t be awesome at everything. No. You can’t. No matter what your online dating profile says. If I could, I would another. Why? It’s like cheap uni without the essays. I think of boot camps as flights. Do one. Figure out what you love. Focus. Do another. Isn’t that what we did at university? Go in with one major, take some classes, learn that you love this other topic or get more specific with your major, keep studying. I am not dumping a truck-load of coin at returning to university. Been there; done that. Boot camps were perfect. But like university, they do not last forever. Also, the living conditions are dreadful.

How do I keep learning on my own? I can’t just read my German texts, play Der Die Das games on my iPhone, and watch German language YouTube channels as I knit. It also doesn’t work to take handwritten notes while I watch tutorials. I don’t print out Medium articles to highlight and make notes in the margins. I tried that out of habit. I do think that writing notes by hand while I watch tutorials was incredibly helpful. Writing code by hand? Changing colors to focus my attention to what I need to remember. Or to see how one code block affects another? And just the slower pace of writing all of that down was incredibly helpful. It was also, however, so … stink … ing … sloooooow. Screw that. It helped me a lot, but at a pace that is not sustainable.

Now what? I think I’ve got it. One of my instructors told me that he learned by watching a tutorial three times: Just watch, follow and code along, do solo and refer back when stuck. Yes! Almost. But that works for me. And it helps me to do other things I feel that I miss out on while learning. I’ve put my spin on it. I’ll listen to the tutorial while I knit, fold laundry, chill with my eyes closed. Anything that keeps me listening but not watching. Focus on what is being said. Listen to the new terms. If I am knitting, I’ll just set a timer for 30-40 minutes. Listen to as many sections that fit into that time. Put the yarn away. Do some casual home squats, crack my knuckles, and go back to where started and code along. Do my own version after I’m done or in parallel. I sometimes listen to many sections. Other times I just repeat one until I know it by heart. It depends. Do I need a refresher and a dusting off of brain matter or do I need a deep dive (hello, JWT and PassportJS)? Either way, since I do not have a live human to go to for advice or have call on me when I raise my hand, I just like to listen and listen.

One bonus (or major problem?) is that I talk to them, imitate their voices, or say those -isms they have. Wes Bos has a few. My favourite is “That’s no way to live your life.” Andrew Mead has “How’d you do?” and “And that’s faaantastic!”. I don’t know. I think this repetition also leads to familiarity with the tutor, so they become someone I know and less of a 2D talking head.

I should add that there are some tutors I cannot listen to when I am tired. It is not that they are boring. Not at all. But some voices and talking styles put me to sleep. Lulling, not boring, me to sleep. For them, I have learned to listen while I get ready for bed. Repeat as I fall asleep. Do the work the next day while I have my coffee. I’m not naming that person. I make him sound boring. It’s not. He’s not at all boring; he has taught me a lot. His voice is just mellowing.

Now. Time to get cracking!

 

 

 

750 words: Stop with the tech-is-bad bs!

~ ihatetoast ~ Leave a comment

Possible ageism trigger warning.
I’m going to complain about older people. By older people, I also include people my age (50). It’s not about their age, but the generation and exposure to tech those generations had.

In 1987, I got my first Macintosh. At the time, I thought there’s be other apples to choose from. I was hoping I’d upgrade to a Granny Smith or Honey Crisp; however, Apple did not have my fabulous idea in mind. I was 19. I already knew how to touch type because my high school teachers made me take typing in order for them to read my essays. Some people were up in arms, thinking I’d head down the secretary path. First off, don’t be sexist. If I had become a carpenter, I’d have been praised for being tough, but a secretary? I think nothing is tougher than a secretary that has to put up with a sexist boss. I digress.

All through university, I used the computer and computer lab to print out my work. I have never gone back to pen and paper except for correspondences. I still write letters and postcards because I love stamps. I was not in a mass of people embracing the Mac and PC. Some refused. I think they had the same genes of those who thought that horseless carriage was craaaazy. The ratio of those who accept, embrace, and understand tech to those who are resistant change every year. Every year, younger people and more families get computers at home. I am thankful that the person who pushed tech on me was my mom, who is now 75 and killing it on social media, using reply all when CC-ed on conservative, scare-mongering emails, and changing her passwords frequently. She has had a mac every year since 1987, too. So the ageism here is a mindset ageism.

I am getting exhausted defending tech to older (mindset) people. Yesterday, I was paying with Oculus at a demo and enjoying going through a house to change the floors, cabinets, lamps. An older man (older than me by far) shook his head. “I don’t know. I just …” You know how this ends. I demoed a hands-free rubbish bin.
Our mini conversations:
“I would just use my hands”.
“Because you can, sir. Not everyone has both arms. Immunosuppressed people need to avoid germs as much as possible. A parent with hands full could use some help.”
WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL?!
“There’s a man at UT who has the code to 3D print a gun.”
“People are making affordable prosthetics in a tiny fraction of the time.”
I showed him the AR available with some companies’ apps where they can see their products in their home.
“Why not save time by knowing what will look good? Why buy something only to return it? Who has time for that? No one wants to go to a big box store more than once in a week.”

Darling, you can toss your TECH IS BAD at me, and I’ll fire back with tech is now and good. Keyhole surgery? How do they practice? AR and VR to train physicians? Yes, please! Programs to help Alexa understand sign language? Um. Yes! And truthfully, even older tech helped us. Did accountants really prefer pencil to paper over the speed of electronic spreadsheets? I am one who likes to handwrite letters, but that is another way of spending time with my friends. Handwriting out ledgers takes so much time, when Excel or Numbers could speed that up, save and edit without wasting time or paper so you could go outside with your family?

Look. Listen. Look and listen. Tech is no different than anything else:
TV. On all day or watch exactly what you want for the hour then turn it off. Watch fear and hate mongering news shows or watch a science show?
Books. Read hateful rhetoric or a playful fantasy novel?
Books, magazines, TV, movies, and tech are just those. Nothing more. They are good or bad, beneficial or harmful, a waste of time or great fun. They are made and used by humans. They are as good or bad as those who create and use them. To lump anything that is new as something bad is foolish, silly, and short-sighted. What is old and familiar to you was once craaaazy new. Germ theory? If you expect your surgeon to wash and scrub up before surgery, you’re embracing something that was once scoffed as new and crazy. Washing your hands before you eat? See above. Pretty much anytime you enter a hospital or doctor’s/dentist’s office, you need to shut up about tech.

It’s ok if it gets harder to learn. I get that. It sucks to get older. Our minds aren’t as sharp. Age gets everyone until death comes in. But our choices are to keep our minds sharp and open or to just close it and turn away. Maybe this is a message to me. Never be that person, Katy. As you get older and your mind gets duller, don’t repackage any wistfulness into jealousy. I hope to enjoy tech until I die and to use it for good. The only time I don’t want tech is after death. Just toss me into the woods for the wolves. I’m cool with that.