Learning Maps
Generally speaking, the progress made in trying to learn anything of note is minimal if one employs a scatter-gun approach. Scatter-gun, in the sense that one hops on anything seemingly attractive, one spends a few minutes on it without really taking down notes or even making an attempt to practice all that one has learnt, then one believes one has learnt all there is to be learnt.
I have found that in the moment, it would seem you have a firm handle on things especially if the narrator or writer of what you have determined to learn is someone very creative and lucid with their illustrations.
In the long run, you find that you are not much better than when you started. This is where it becomes necessary to make proper documentation, taking stock of the journey as you learn. I reckon that taking stock involves properly defining what it is you wish to learn, why you want to learn it, how it connects to something important to you, the best methods/practices that you could employ in learning and those persons that have before gone along such routes and the lessons and experiences they garnered along the way.
I make bold to say that the learning points I have taken my time to properly define have mostly yielded good fruit in the long run, well, those that I ended up using for anything; those I was sure I needed before embarking upon learning them.
A learning map properly makes your path clearer, helps you key into the bigger picture, helps maintain your clarity in times of disillusionment, and ensures that goals are achieved in good time, if diligently and doggedly followed.
Andela redefined learning maps for me in the sense that I took in so much information without properly figuring out where all of them fit in and so constantly found myself wanting. Finally, I got to a point in which I had to convince myself of the importance of said Learning maps, and soon found that they make my work easier and more directed in the long run. The fact that Andela has learning maps for progression in different areas you wish to speacialize in served as a tipping point in convincing me to define my personal learning maps while following theirs as well. I follow strict learning maps these days depending on the frameworks/tools I figure I need to master.
Phew! So much words to describe a basic concept, and to kick off this blog in which, I’d be sharing random and not-so-random elements of my journey through web and app development; sometimes, they be actual code-related information, sometimes, they be pure eureka modules of knowledge that find application to different areas of life.
Quotidian note to self: The destination is the journey
