Down the Rabbit Hole: Self-education as Channeled by Google

There can be no doubt that Google has been changing the way we think, work, and learn, and at this point it would take the breakdown of several nations to change that trajectory. That doesn't mean that the academy is ready for the challenge of learning the Google way, though; if there is a social institution that moves at a more "deliberate" pace, the Ivory Tower would have already found it by now, since they've been looking since 1096 or so.  Thus, those of us who have dedicated our lives to higher learning sometimes have a similar reluctance to learning in this newfangled, internetty sort of way.  I certainly prefer my formalized coursework and structured, guided, controlled environments, and I know several others in my programs, past and present, who feel the same way.

Image taken from Marjan Krebelj.  CC BY 2.0

The problem, though, is that learning itself is not something that only happens by reading books or having long, detailed discussions with well-read colleagues, or in a classroom where a master of the subject can provide leadership enough so that (mostly) everyone arrives at understanding by the end of the semester.  Learning happens in so many contexts it's hard to even start to put together a list, and so near as I can tell, as long as learning happens, there is no "bad" way to learn.  Sure, some ways are better than others and many ways are more costly than we would like to deal with, but if coming to terms with required content or skills happens, I think the method is one largely left up to preference.  There are folks out there for whom the school of hard knocks is the only effective institution of learning; at that point, cost is irrelevant.

What we should be asking ourselves, then, in the face of all of this techno-instructo-wizardry is not how to use Google to learn how to code (you already know how to do this) or how to find resources online that will help you fix your borked PHP script (again, you already know how to do this), but how to understand what we're doing when we do these things as learning.

Yes, we're academics, and yes, we're humanists, but it wasn't until I figured out that this was just like any other skill that I started to make sense of the whole enterprise.  Learning HTML is just like learning to change a tire or make spaghetti or replace a lost button on your shirt.  I wouldn't call these skills particularly sexy or employable, but that's because we're adults and we're expected to be able to do them.  Same goes for writing a simple web page (or at least tracking down the information necessary to do so). Coding has become necessary in the same way, especially in our line of work, and once we realize this truth, it becomes much less stressful and much more fulfilling work.

That said, if you're still having trouble finding resources to help you learn the basics, here's a quick list of my own go-to sites. As Dr. Gibbs has pointed out, nine times out of ten no one site will have the perfect solution for you, but these are at least some good ones I've found. I hope you find them as useful as I do.

• Lynda - The University has a subscription to this resource, which can teach you everything from rocket science to how to code.  I focus on the latter, myself.  These videos are high quality and very clear, and they're put together by people who know their stuff.
• W3Schools - Probably my favorite how-to-code website of all time, they have tutorials and quick-reference pages for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and a lot more.  Moreover, they developed a way to try the code out in windows in their own website, making it easy to figure things out before including new code in your own project.  They also have a pretty awesome hex color picker.
• Programming on Khan Academy - It may be a little simplistic to start, but there are some basic skills and concepts that every coder needs to know, and Khan Academy is pretty good about making them clear, even to those who have no coding background. It's a lot like Lynda, only you don't need to log in because it's free, and since it's free, what have you got to lose?
• Land of Code - Another good reference site that also provides exercises to test your understanding (and, importantly, the answers to those exercises so you can see what you did wrong and fix it!).

There are actually tons more out there, but this should at least give you a starting point if Google just buried you in options.

See you in class!