How To Learn

In our careers as software developers, one of the biggest challenges we face is “keeping up.” I personally know a COBOL developer that is freaking out because there’s “no development work.” This obviously isn’t the case, but because he let his technical skills age over time, he’s now much like the horse carriage repairman that thought automobiles were a fad. This talk will give you some inspiration to learn something new, while showing you some simple ways to make it a reality.

Transcript

1. how to learn
2. why learning is important
3. how to stay employable
4. how to learn
5. meet tom
6. tip #1 don’t be tom
7. learn something new every year …but I don’t have any time!
8. you have time (it’s just not a priority)
9. remember tip #1 don’t be tom
10. learning takes on different forms (a history lesson)
11. elementary school learning (circa 1986)
13. JAIL JAIL JAIL
14. high school learning (circa 1990)
16. college learning (circa 1994)
17. finally, the internet was here
19. today, the amount of information grows by 50% a month
20. kilobyte (103) megabyte (106) gigabyte (109) terabyte (1012) petabyte (1015) exabyte (1018) zettabyte (1021) the internet is currently about 500 exabytes in 2020, it’s estimated to be 35 zettabytes
21. it gets worse
22. stuff that was current two years ago is now out of date
23. the stuff you learn as a sophomore is old news when you graduate (assuming you take four years)
24. you need to keep up
25. i don’t read tech books
26. i rarely read websites
27. those are reference material
28. reading != knowing
29. Riding A Bicycle 101 1. Sit on the bicycle, facing forward. 2. Pedal clockwise to provide power. 3. Rotate handlebars to turn. 4. Have fun!
31. put the poor kid on a bike. let him practice. let him fall.
33. tip #2 learning comes from mistakes not memorization
34. i lazy load knowledge
35. i used to have a system
36. Standardized Testing
37. Cheat Sheets
38. school memorization problem solving real life memorization problem solving
39. today, i have a project
40. today, i have a project
41. learning only happens when you want it to
42. tip #3 just do it
43. one final thought
44. tip #4 when in doubt, use more bacon
45. thank you