Learning
Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 5:37 pm
Learning
Everyone here will know how a computer works to some degree. Some to a far greater depth than I do, some about the same and those just entering the Software Development profession perhaps less.
Whatever level of expertise we have individually, we have all had to learn and that is not easy. Enjoyable, challenging and so on it may well be, but learning anything demands time.
Many, myself included, will have learned programming through actual coding. Code a bit, miraculously it worked. A huge amount of electronic jiggery-pokery went on behind the scenes, but no matter, success gave us the motivation to carry on.
But this is not the natural way to learn how anything works. It is learning from details of doing something up to a general understanding.
As humans, we learn in the opposite way – from a broad understanding over an increasingly narrower breadth of understanding ‘til we reach ever-smaller levels of detail. This applies to anything and the truth of this is clear to see when we consider our education systems.
It is easiest to see at kindergarten level where teachers have a broader knowledge of things than their young charges, and can therefore explain things in a way those charges understand.
This continues throughout primary, secondary and higher levels of education and indeed throughout life. We continue to accept facts that we see or are otherwise brought to our attention in any ad-hoc way, but it then takes time to assimilate such facts into overall comprehension.
If anyone feels they would like to follow this approach through, leading perhaps to a different or alternative perspective on computers and technological advances in general, I’ll try to write a bit more on the subject; leading up to “seeing” in real world terms “computer” solutions to many seemingly intractable problems.
It is all surprisingly easy (to start of with at least). But, whilst I have been using the concepts “exposed” in much of what I do for some time (to advantage) I have nothing written down.
Writing it down would inevitably take time. So, you will understand I don’t want to do this unless anyone feels it may be useful.
Terry
Everyone here will know how a computer works to some degree. Some to a far greater depth than I do, some about the same and those just entering the Software Development profession perhaps less.
Whatever level of expertise we have individually, we have all had to learn and that is not easy. Enjoyable, challenging and so on it may well be, but learning anything demands time.
Many, myself included, will have learned programming through actual coding. Code a bit, miraculously it worked. A huge amount of electronic jiggery-pokery went on behind the scenes, but no matter, success gave us the motivation to carry on.
But this is not the natural way to learn how anything works. It is learning from details of doing something up to a general understanding.
As humans, we learn in the opposite way – from a broad understanding over an increasingly narrower breadth of understanding ‘til we reach ever-smaller levels of detail. This applies to anything and the truth of this is clear to see when we consider our education systems.
It is easiest to see at kindergarten level where teachers have a broader knowledge of things than their young charges, and can therefore explain things in a way those charges understand.
This continues throughout primary, secondary and higher levels of education and indeed throughout life. We continue to accept facts that we see or are otherwise brought to our attention in any ad-hoc way, but it then takes time to assimilate such facts into overall comprehension.
If anyone feels they would like to follow this approach through, leading perhaps to a different or alternative perspective on computers and technological advances in general, I’ll try to write a bit more on the subject; leading up to “seeing” in real world terms “computer” solutions to many seemingly intractable problems.
It is all surprisingly easy (to start of with at least). But, whilst I have been using the concepts “exposed” in much of what I do for some time (to advantage) I have nothing written down.
Writing it down would inevitably take time. So, you will understand I don’t want to do this unless anyone feels it may be useful.
Terry