2020 Review: Learning how to learn
Hello again. I know it has been ages since you last heard from me. Not to give excuses, but I think I just needed some time to figure out some pending issues- my apologies.
Well, I returned with a banger! So let’s dive into what I’m serving you today.
What’s all the fuss about Learning anyway?
So, Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines(ML-ish); there is also evidence for some kind of learning in certain plants.
I discovered a Hack to learning in January 2020 and trust me, It worked like magic for me. I have always wanted to learn how to code, and build cool stuff at an early stage, but every time I settled down to learn a programming language, guess what? I always somehow wandered away. Over the last 2 years, I have had deep interests in IoT, CyberSecurity, Networking, and finally Data Science. At the beginning of this year, I had a strong interest in Data Science after following a couple of cool MIT students on Twitter😎, and I told myself I was going to settle down and “learn” this thing, no matter what it takes.
What did I “do”?
In February towards my school exams, I downloaded many Data Science Tutorials of about 19GB and stored them on my computer. The plan was to digest it and voila! “Become a Proficient Data Scientist”. But ladies and gentlemen, those videos are still very cold in my recycle bin somewhere, because when It was holiday time, I got bored with “watching them just do stuff” and I instantly deleted them😭.
However, the Chinese Philosopher Confucius said something that really triggered me;
“I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, but I do and I understand”
So, I started to DO- Lol. I signed up on Codecademy for a more practical approach to learning, where I could immediately practice what I just learned, and my interest skyrocketed especially in Machine Learning. Weeks after, I took some extra courses on Edx and began to experiment.
What am I recommending?
If you are just starting your coding journey- or just want to experiment, I have a free expo for you. I have collated a list of 5 simple projects that you can build in order to learn to code. These projects will help you to understand how to solve real problems!
1. Build a Blog Project
Building a blog project is a great way to start learning and diving into a framework or programming language. I built the Codengine Blog when I was trying to learn a new web framework. This project will help you learn how to work with basic functionalities like CRUD statements (Create, Read, Update, Delete).
So if you’re trying to learn PHP, Python, or any other web language, I advise you to build these kinds of projects, it’s gonna be cool & fun, and full of new information.
Here is a tutorial about building a blog project with JavaScript;
2. Build a Random Quote Machine Project:
The idea is to let the user interact with the app by clicking a button and the app should generate a new random quote from the database and also you can add social media buttons to make the quote sharable and the user can share it with his friends for example.
You can build these single-page projects on CodePen or JS Bin. They’ll help you practice HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and you can even throw in Angular or React. They’ll also force you to get good at responsive design, JSON APIs, and leveraging your browser’s local storage.
Here is a tutorial on how to build a random quote machine with reactJs. Random Quote Machine Project;
3. Build a Weather App Project
If you would consider making a simple weather app, you would learn some more UI elements provided by the platform. Of course, the UI creation depends on how complex you want your weather app to be. I would suggest referring to Apple’s weather app. It’s a very simple and clean weather app.
Apart from UI, you will learn to make a server request and parse data coming from the server. For this, you can use any free API provided by numerous sources to get the current weather data.
Here is a tutorial on how to build a weather app with JavaScript;
4. Build a Calculator Project
Probably the most popular beginner project to date. We all know that almost every device known has its own calculator, but have ever wondered how can you build a calculator with a programming language that you’re trying to learn? Well, this project is one of the best projects to learn to code. Creating a calculator allows users to perform simple tasks using simple operations like multiplication and division.
It doesn’t have to be the most exciting application, but you can rest assured it’s absolutely necessary for a beginning programmer.
Here is a youtube tutorial on how to build a calculator using JavaScript;
5. Build a To-Do List Project
You should build to-do projects because simply they let you understand the basics of any framework or programming language. So just start to build these projects because it’s gonna be fun and enjoyable. of course, it doesn’t have to be a complete project with complicated operations and algorithms, the goal is to learn and not to make obstacles in front of you.
Here is a tutorial on how to build a to-do app using ReactJs.
Finallyyy?
Yes, finally. I enjoyed the learning process I went through in 2020, It was extraordinarily phenomenal for me. As you go on, pick a path, focus on it, and start practicing. This applies to many other concepts in life as well. We learn every day, don't we?
You can reach out to me on Twitter (@thekenose), I’ll be happy to hear from you. Have a productive year ahead!
