Continuing Education Reference Counterculture

Continuing education has, on one hand, never been a problem for me. On the other, it has always been a problem for me. Because I present fairly often, I get the chance to attend officially-sanctioned continuing education events frequently. But, I will tell you, that after you?ve seen a few presentations in one year, you begin to become disenchanted with official continuing education. I have seen a lot of presentations that gave me one or two good insights, but contained a lot of information that I already knew. I have seen a few spectacular ones, but only a few.

So, this summer, I?ve been away from posting because (a) I was in 2 plays, which takes up a lot of time and (b) because I decided to do some unsanctioned continuing education ? no CEUs or time taken at work, just learning.

Power Searching with Google

The first course that I took was in late June, early July was from Google and it was called ?Power Searching with Google?. I was a little bit suspicious when I signed up because I am an excellent Google searcher. I was expecting to find a lot of information that I already knew. I was partially wrong.

As with many online courses, this class consisted of video lectures, exercises, a message board, and exams. Some of the video lectures were nothing new, but I would say that the majority, if they didn?t introduce me to new tools, introduced me to new ways of thinking about tools that I had known about and not used to their full potential:

Example 1: If you?re looking for a diagram, try using Google image search, but limiting the search to black and white. While this isn?t foolproof, a large percentage of diagrams are written in black and white, and therefore are more likely to come to the top.

Example 2: Limit your search by date to come up with information that you knew was posted during a specific time period. For example, I recently went looking for the original posting of an image that I wanted to send to a friend. By limiting my ?by date,search?I began to narrow down the individuals that re-posted that image (unattributed) and was able to narrow down my final search by millions of hits.

Most of the exercises that they presented were also simple for me, but a few of them were quite challenging and I spent a significant portion of time trying to complete them. They also introduced me to a few new sites that I now follow and attempt similar exercises to make sure that I stay aware of new features in Google as well as so that I can test my advanced Google searching skills:

• Inside Search: Google?s source for mastering searching and finding out about new search features.
• Search Research: A Blogger who posts difficult Google search challenges and how to answer them.

Overall, I am incredibly glad that I took the class, and it spurred me on to try another type of online learning.

Coursera:

My brother first introduced me to Coursera, a place to take free online classes from notable universities. Having had a successful introduction to free online learning, I decided to try another. About a month ago, I looked through their many offerings and decided upon a course to take. Because it?s online, not through my job, and not for credit, I feel more free to try courses that I might have failed if I had taken them in college. I?m willing to challenge myself more and try things that I wouldn?t otherwise try. For me, that narrowed down my choice to either ?Cryptography? or ?Machine Learning?. Both of these are computer systems classes. I studied a lot of computer-related material in my masters: Object-Oriented Programming, Information Architecture, Database Application Design, etc? But, I haven?t had the opportunity to use that knowledge as much as I would like at my job in a public library.

In the end I chose ?Machine Learning? for two reasons: (1) It required programming experience, and while I had programming experience, my knowledge is rusty and I wanted to brush up. (2) When I applied to U of M, I sat in on a Natural Language Processing class that I really wanted to take in grad school, but couldn?t because I graduated early and the class wasn?t offered while I was there. Machine Learning, while different, will (I think) apply some of the same principals associated with Natural Language Processing. It will also help me to better understand recommender systems like Amazon and iTunes, as well as search algorithms and other computer tasks that I engage in every day.

I?m only halfway-through week 1 in ?Machine Learning? and the material is already challenging and engaging. I have no background in this area and even my linear regression skills are rusty, but I love having the chance to brush them up in an environment with no consequences, just learning.

I would strongly recommend trying a Coursera class to anyone who is interested and self-motivated to learn something entirely new.

Source: http://www.kabergeron.com/2012/08/24/continuing-education/

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