Thing #41: There's No Excuse Not To Learn! (or "How To" 2.0)

Lifelong learning is often discussed in the context of professional development, but most of us have things we want to learn for purposes of personal development as well.

Sometimes we need to learn something new out of necessity. Perhaps you’re a first-time home-owner who suddenly needs a crash course in basic home repairs. Or maybe a diabetes diagnosis requires you to learn a whole new way of cooking. Other times we want to learn something just for fun—like knitting, cake decorating, or Chinese!

In the past, if we didn’t want to enroll in a formal class we could usually go to a bookstore or library and find instructional books or tapes designed to help us learn desired skills. Self-instruction books and DVDs are still widely available in bookstores and libraries, but in recent years the variety and quality of free online instructional resources has skyrocketed. And I can think of a number of instances in which I—or someone I know—relied primarily on a free online resource to learn something new.

Examples:

• Last year, half-way through vacation at a lakeside cabin in Minnesota, I hit a knitting roadblock. I’d finished the “easy” part of my project and I now needed to perform a different and more complicated stitch. For the life of me I couldn’t follow the written instructions or decipher the diagrams in my book. If I couldn’t figure this out I was done with knitting for the remainder of the week. In desperation I took our laptop to the car and drove closer to the resort owners’ house in order to access the wireless signal they provided to guests. Once online I quickly located a short video clip of someone demonstrating how to perform the stitch. That made all the difference! I was able to return to the cabin and resume my project as though I’d never had a problem!

• On a recent trip to visit my friend Karen, she cooked us steak for dinner. I’ve known Karen since junior high and she’s never had the slightest interest in cooking. So where had she learned to cook steak? Some video she found on YouTube!

• My son has difficulty with handwriting, so several educational advisors have recommended he learn keyboarding as soon as possible. So how do people learn keyboarding these days? No longer do they sit in a classroom in front of a typewriter while a teacher rhythmically calls out letters. Now they use free, online typing tutorials like Dance Mat Typing or E-Learning for Kids Keyboarding Skills.

It’s certainly possible and often quite productive to search for exactly what you need, using your favorite search engine. For instance, click on the following links to see Google search results for the following:

• picking up stitches while knitting socks
• how to cook a steak video
• free keyboarding tutorials for children

However, it’s also fun to browse some of the numerous “how to” sites that have sprung up to host or serve as directories to free instructional videos on the web. And that’s what we’re going to do for Thing #41!

General Interest "How To" Sites

The first three sites I’d like to direct your attention to host instructional videos on such a wide range of topics that probably everyone can find something of personal interest or value. All can be used without registration, but signing up for free accounts gets you additional functionality. Take a look and see what you think!

• Graspr: The Instructional Video Network
• Instructables
• MonkeySee

School "How To" Sites

These next three sites are probably of greatest interest to students who need help with schoolwork—or the adults they ask to assist them. I know as the parent of an elementary student I sometimes have trouble helping my son with math not because I can’t do the problems, but because I wasn’t taught to solve them the same way he’s being taught.

In these instances I’ve found it useful to go online and search for lessons that present the material in the same way it’s being presented in his classroom. If I can find such lessons—and I almost always do on sites like those listed below—it gives me the background information I need to provide my son with the type of assistance he needs.

• WatchKnow - Thousands of great short videos, and other media, explaining every topic taught to school kids. Videos come from many sites include YouTube, eHow, National Geographic, TeacherTube, and more.

• TeacherTube – An educationally focused, safe venue for sharing instructional videos; designed for teachers, schools, and home learners.

• Khan Academy – Thousands of short videos created by Salman Khan to explain math concepts from simple to advanced. Useful to students of all levels. (Watch this 3-minute CNN clip to learn more.)

The instructional video sites I’ve highlighted above are only a sampling of what’s available. In fact, the “how to” video phenomenon is becoming so widespread that someone even created a Google Custom Search Engine to search across multiple instructional video sites. It is called the How Do I? Instructional Video Search. (Note to Michael: Try searching for “move a shed.”)

Assignment

1. Explore the "How To" sites referenced above. In your blog post identify and link to at least two lessons or tutorials that particularly interest you.
2. Describe your experience exploring the sites and explain what you like about the resources you chose to highlight.
3. Finally, spend some time reflecting on the advantages and/or disadvantages you think these online "how to" sites have over more traditional "how to" resources. How do the online resources compare to physical "how to" resources owned by your library? Are these sites competition for our collections or are they welcome supplements to them?

Postscript: On Friday, September 24, Google awarded Khan Academy two million dollars "to bolster its free online library of educational videos and translate core works into the world's most widely spoken languages." Khan Academy was one of five groups chosen to receive funds through Google's Project 10^100

And here's a final interesting anecdote: According to an article on the CNNMoney.com site, Khan Academy creator Salman Khan is supposedly Bill Gates' favorite teacher!