You can learn almost anything online nowadays. I will focus on learning to code in this article.
There are many resources for learning to code online. It’s hard to choose the right one. As a beginner you don’t know if the source you are learning from is the better one or the worse one. Most of learning resources don’t provide feedback. Feedback is important factor in the process of learning. Feedback can improve learner’s skills prominently. I learned to code from non-interactive resources like text or video tutorials and tried to build apps myself. These times are at the end.
Learn to code with feedback
Year 2015 is the year of interactive learning. I have built an e-learning platform for learning to code called CoderMania. Students can learn to code thanks to automatically evaluated exercises and they can even ask for help if they get stuck.
This way of learning is better than reading or watching tutorials. There are also other sites for learning to code interactively. But CoderMania is the best at least for JavaScript IMHO ;-).
Learn to code with instant feedback
It’s great to learn to code interactively with ability to ask for help. But it takes some time while a student gets feedback. What if a student could learn specific topic like HTML, ask for help and get instant feedback? That would be great, right? And that’s where stream platforms like livecoding.tv, coders.tv and watchpeoplecode get on. I have tried all of them and I have chosen livecoding.tv because it has nice profile page for streamers, schedule of streaming events, big community of streamers and viewers, nice user interface and big potential. I will use livecoding.tv for my Web development school. Initially, I wanted to teach people mainly via videos on Youtube but (scheduled) streaming seems to be a much better option. The only disadvantages of livecoding.tv are that they delete videos shorter than 20 minutes after one week and they don’t provide an option to download videos. I don’t know why. But that’s not that big problem for me. I will try to make sessions longer than 20 minutes and it does not matter to me where videos are stored. Livecoding.tv continuously improves their service and that’s the best about it.
Is instant feedback really needed?
I don’t know. Watching videos and reading tutorials is great option for learning but that’s not interactive. Interactivity is the key for attractiveness.
Interactive learning is the future
And the future is now. Interactivity is important part of learning. When students can interact with teacher in real-time, that’s really engaging. As a teacher, I have tried to write tutorials, make videos and even an e-learning platform but none of them are as interactive as streaming. Streaming gives teachers and students the missing part that they would naturally have in real school – real-time interaction. That’s pure awesomeness. When I have tried to stream for the first time and realized that people from around the world can watch me and ask questions, that was a great discovery and feeling!
I will do streams about web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Meteor.js, MongoDB) on a regular basis. You can watch them on https://www.livecoding.tv/elfoslav/. You will be able to learn to code with interaction with teacher as you would sit with him in the room! You can also choose any stream from the schedule. You can even stream while you are learning and you can get feedback from viewers.
I hope you will enjoy live streaming as I do.