online learning – Richard's blog

Online Learning – Alternatives to YouTube

Byrichard 3 November 20213 November 2021

Between adverts that play too often, videos that encourage people tho shift to the Right side of the political spectrum and sensationalism I decided to stop using YouTube. I have spent two months without YouTube. I use alternative video platforms. I use Udemy, Prime Video, Linkedin Learning, Vimeo and other platforms.

I stopped using YouTube because it went from being a video sharing platform for individuals to being a broadcast platform where algorithms force some types of content rather than others. I saw an increasing amount of sensationalist headlines and video titles and grew tired of them. I was tired of having to filter out the emotional politically slanted content from worthwhile content. I had to spend more time reporting and ignoring content designed to make me angry or emotional. Clickbait was another challenge to overcome.

YouTube, although relied on by plenty of people to share video content, has become toxic. Take a look at video tutorial websites, Vimeo and other video distribution platforms and you will see how stark the contrast is. Add to this the flood of video adverts and you have a service that becomes unusable. Sometimes I had two to five minute videos as pre-roll before a two minute video of content I wanted to watch.

YouTube then asks for 20 CHF or more per month for the same content, without adverts. 240 CHF per year, for user generated content. That is far too expensive, especially when they de-monetised content from normal video content producers with small audiences, and low viewing hours.

Within the last month I did return to YouTube, but between the sensationalist headlines, and the pre-roll adverts I found that the cost of use became too high. They have made it so that you can no longer browse for content without eventually giving up and watching what the algorithms think you should watch. This is unhealthy. This is dangerous because of how it can polarise people who have not made up their minds about moral, or other issues.

I bring this up today because I saw that someone said that YouTube is a great school for developers but I do not believe that it is. I do not believe that it is because it is exploitative of content creators. Content creators need to invest hundreds of hours in creating content, sensationalising it to appeal to the algorithms, and then get thousands of minutes of viewing time before they can monetise it.

I believe that Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, Coursera and other platforms are more interesting for makers of tutorial and learning videos because you can charge people for content. You can provide them with certificates of completion and you can split courses into units and chapters. You can also include files and test them on what they have learned, and get them to revise, if they fail.

Linkedin Learning

One of the strengths of Linkedin Learning is that it is bound to your company or NGO e-mail account so you can study for free, via the company that you are working for. When you complete courses your skills are highlighted in your Linkedin Profile, as are your certificates. This is useful to show that you are an active learner.

Coursera

I used Coursera for the Google IT Support course, and although the course is 28 USD per month until you complete the course, it is a great learning platform because it integrates with online learning solutions that force you to learn in a practical manner. You have to setup and take down servers, you have to create and remove directories, show that you understand binary, network topologies and more. You also take quizzes and if you fail you need to revise for an hour before you can try again. If you fail again you need to wait 24hours or more before retaking a test. You learn by practicing, and by reviewing. You can give up, but as long as you are motivated you can pass the course. I like their system.

Udemy

Udemy is more like Linkedin Learning except that rather than pay per month or per year, you pay per course. The courses are often 200 or more dollars a piece, but they often have promotions where you can get courses for 12 USD or less. This means that if you’re attentive you can get three or four courses for the price of an Entrecote in a swiss restaurant. There is no time limit on these courses, so you are not forced to do every course within a month or year, of purchasing a course.

And Finally

Learning is a process. Splitting it into manageable pieces is important. Being clear of distractions is also important. To learn we need to be active, through listening to instructions, and then checking that we have understood what we are doing, and then moving on to the next part. With Udemy, Coursera and Linkedin we can do this easily, and at the end of it we have a certificate of completion. In some cases it is automatically added to our Linkedin profile.

With YouTube we are flooded with distractions, we are forced to filter through the irrelevant before we come to the relevant, and in many cases tutorials are several hours long. I prefer to learn via platforms where the instructors are forced to be systematic about the courses they provide. If YouTube wants to be a serious contender in the Online learning environment then it should create a new product, YouTube learning, and provide relevant features, to formalise what, for now is a chaotic system.

I realise that people like to watch five to ten minute videos explaining how to do something specific, via YouTube. For me though, YouTube is too chaotic. I prefer to find a written explanation.

Swiss walks

Relaxing with Language Learning

Byrichard 18 August 2021

Today I practiced vocal German and I found it relaxing compared to being with people in person. This pandemic sees the opportunities almost impossible.

When I played with voice recognition on the laptop it failed but when I use it on the phone it works fine. Practice speaking with a phone, when you’re in a quiet room.

website news

WordPress Child Themes

Byrichard 14 July 202114 July 2021

For a while, I have been thinking about creating my own WordPress themes, but I didn’t know where to start or how many hours it would take. I always assumed that it would take many hours and that I would have to create templates, style sheets and more for a number of pages. In reality, you need an index.php page and a stylesheet. Anything else is a bonus.

A shortcut is to find a theme that you like and to see which fields you want to modify and just modify that behaviour. Choosing to use another font requires one or two lines of code. With minimal effort, you can personalise a theme.

The course I watched is “WordPress: Building Child Themes” and within two hours you will see how to use CSS, functions and templates to change one or more aspects, using the themes that you select. Personalising your own theme, can take seconds rather than hours.

It also gives you an opportunity to learn with a small challenge, and as you grow more confident you can try more and more ambitious projects.

You have the Theme Developer Handbook to help you along.

What I would like to do is find a way to create themes by subject for pages so that I can make my website fully dynamic, and bring the static pages into the 21st century. This will require some trial and error, hence the value in playing and experimenting, until it works.

reviews

Playing With Grasshopper

Byrichard 8 June 2020

Grasshopper is a Google app to teach adults and children about Javascript. It provides people with short, easy to understand modules to get a grasshopper to do things.

The curriculum is divided into seven modules. These are:

Fundamentals
Fundamentals II
Intro to Interviewing
Array Methods
Animations
Animations II
Using a Code Editor
Intro To Webpages

So far I have only played with part of the fundamentals course. You don’t need to write much code. You can select which function and variable you want to use, rather than typing lines and lines of code.

This is the type of app that you can use almost anywhere, and anytime you have a few minutes free.

One of the challenges, when you want to learn a new programming language, is to set up an environment before you start playing with code. That can be a long process and it’s easy to lose interest before you have even written two lines of code.

With such a simple app you don’t need to set anything up. You can play with code, see what it does, and then try something more complex. You can familiarise yourself with the language before you install a development environment on the machine you use.

As soon as the app is installed on your phone you start learning.

Uncategorized

A Fourteen Kilometre walk and I Crossed Paths With Just Two Other People.

Byrichard 20 May 2020

Today I went for a fourteen Kilometre walk and I crossed paths with just two other people. It was a couple of runners and we crossed paths at just the right place as I could slip into a clearing, wait for them to pass and then continue on my way. I think this is the quietest walk I’ve been on in a while.

During the walk I saw that some fields had been harvested, that new barriers were being put up and that someone’s Mini adventure involved a bike in an open top Mini.

Before the daily walk, I continued studying CSS and after learning the basics I am learning how to fine-tune and control what CSS is doing with more granularity. The finished product is looking better and better.

Language learning | social conscience

Day 65 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Coping with Solitude

Byrichard 19 May 2020

Coping with solitude is one of the challenges that we, people who live alone, are going to become familiar with. It’s 65 days since I’ve had skin to skin contact, sixty-five days since I’ve given or received a hug. It’s sixty-five days since I’ve had a meal with anyone.

Happiness, whilst entirely and easily accomplished, is all about adjusting our goals and aspirations to remain positive, and even find happiness. As it’s lunchtime, and it’s Tuesday, I should be going to get food for the upcoming week but I don’t have the positivity to do that at this instant. I’m writing this blog post because I have found, on more than one occasion, that writing helps me organise thoughts into a positive context.

I’m still working on the future.

Today I finished the Linkedin Learning course on Essential CSS and I started the course on CSS Essential Training. I’m still moving forward and I’m working on being able to apply for a different set of jobs. I have already studied for 102 minutes and my weekly goal is just 120 minutes so I’m reaching that goal with speed.

According to the Productive App, I’m on day 69, with 69 “Total perfect days”. I’ve “done” 354 tasks so far with an average of 5.1 a day. With Duolingo, I have a 252-day streak of studying a new language every single day, with no “skip the weekend” or other cheats. I’m still moving forward.

I have returned five results and generated 3549 points for OpenPandemics.

Avoiding Reminders of What We Can’t Achieve.

During this pandemic one of the easiest ways for me to be happy and stable, is to avoid reminders of what I don’t have. By avoiding people who are not walking alone, by avoiding seeing families together, by avoiding romantic comedies, and by avoiding specific television shows, I can feel content with the life that is possible for a single person, living alone, in between jobs, not to fall into a negative feedback loop.

Happiness, is about being happy with what we have, and what is possible.

Driving to the mountains with a group of strangers to go for a hike, to go climbing or to do via ferrata is not possible. Even if we did go to climb on the Via Ferrata that are open we would have to respect the two meter distance, wear a mask, gloves, and then disinfect at the end of the activity.

With those limitations we might as well continue with our pandemic routine.

A person rides a horse along a dirt road near some woods.

During this pandemic I get comfort from people doing things in solitude, like the horse rider in the image above. I was walking towards the horse and its rider and it seemed spooked so I stopped, and let it walk by. I went into the meadow between fields to give it more space.

Moments like this feel good, because they’re experienced between two individuals. I am not reminded of the solitude that I am currently unable to change. The person might not go back to solitude, but I draw strength from seeing other people dealing with solitude.

Thru Hiking, which is a topic I’ve been reading, and listening to podcasts about, is about spending hours, weeks, or even months in solitude with one’s thoughts.

I love hiking with people, and I look forward to when hiking can resume being a group activity. It is a pleasant way of starting new friendships although this pleasure will have to wait a few more weeks.

Réfuges, in the mountains, are re-opening and these opportunities are slowly coming back. I look forward to when things are back to normal. I look forward to when we can start to do group activities.

I knew I’d feel better, after writing this blog post and I was right. I do.

It might seem strange that I’d rather not meet people who are not alone through this, but it’s a coping mechanism, which is why I’m on day 65 of solitude, and ambitious, rather than the opposite.

random | Swiss walks

Day 52 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – More Cows, and Cascading Style Sheets

Byrichard 6 May 2020

While some of us have gone fifty-two days without being within two meters of another person due to the pandemic others walk side by side down country lanes, forcing those walking alone to make the decision of whether to risk infecting the vulnerable couple or stepping off the road and waiting under an electricity pylon while the selfish people clear the way.

In the image above we can clearly see two couples walking side by side. If these couples could walk single file then single people would be able to move around more freely. That’s why I went for walks in the rain, why I walked through muddy fields and paths that became streams. It’s the only way to avoid these people. Solitary confinement may be the reason this behaviour bothers me so much. It’s hard to see people that are not alone, when we are.

If I was walking in open fields at the moment I would have been charged at least two or three times by cows protecting their young. The reason for this is that they’re with calves that are just a week or three old. You can see them stand defensively and that they’re ready to charge you if you get too close.

Now would be a very bad time to walk into an enclosure. Now is a good time to be careful when hiking.

@richardazia

##switzerland ##calve ##veau ##jeune ##suisse

? Barden Bellas – joealbanese

Language learning

It’s my Duoversary

Byrichard 17 February 202017 February 2020

A year ago today I signed up to Duolingo and started studying German on a daily basis, and occasionally played with other languages. I complimented this with listening to podcasts in German almost daily and making other attempts to learn languages.

I went from trying to get fifty experience points a day per day for months before a conference broke my streak as I was too exhausted by the end of the day to continue learning. Life got in the way. It was more important to spend time with people.

Since then I have kept up the streak for what will be my one hundred and sixty-first day in a row when I complete a lesson today. My goal is ten XP per day, i.e. one lesson but some days I get to one hundred XP and other days I do the bare minimum.

Every so often I hit walls. I want to study and I want to progress further but I just feel lost and just keep making mistakes. It’s at moments like this that I revise what I have already learned, in the hope that with consolidation I make progress sooner.

When I was in Spain over December I took a break from studying German to study Spanish. You might as well study the language of the country where you are at that moment.

After a year of practice, I have learned a theoretical 1600 words but I still feel like a beginner. The app is great at getting you to learn specific words and phrases but it is of limited utility to learn a language properly. First I was going lesson by lesson until I got to five stars before moving to the next and then, before I hit the wall I tried lessons up to level one before moving on and that’s when I hit a learning wall. I struggled with phrasing and word order.

On the plus side, I can understand more and more as I listen to news podcasts although the percentage of words I understand still needs to go up before I can understand half of what they’re saying.

When I took online tests to see what my German level was I am still classed as a beginner and it is frustrating after a year of effort. If I had continued with doing five lessons a day then I’d be further along.

It isn’t the first time that I try to learn German. As a teenager, I had German lessons but I found the teaching method was boring compared to how Spanish was taught. I was given extra English lessons instead.

This second attempt at learning German is going better but I feel that I should work to make more progress. After a year of effort, I should be further along. In two or three weeks I’ll be taking formal lessons and expect smoother progress.

Video

Linkedin Learning

Byrichard 14 October 201914 October 2019

Summary

Linkedin Learning is a video resource for people who would like to learn new skills. These range from writing and painting to sound design, video lighting, project management and more. In following these courses individuals can learn new skills, perfect old ones, and learn new tricks. The point is always to move forward, whether you have five minutes or twenty seven and a half hours.

Individual Videos

Taylre Jones Film and Video Colorist – Film from Taylre Jones, Film and Video Colorist by Taylre Jones

For people who are new to Linkedin Learning, you have the opportunity to watch short self-contained videos before committing to courses. These cover a range of subjects and range in duration from three minutes to half an hour or more. All course videos can be watched individually as you would YouTube videos if you wanted to refresh your knowledge of how to do something.

Courses

Courses such as The History of Film And Video Editing are made up of videos divided into two chapters The first chapter is about A History of Film Editing and the second part is about The Technology of film and Video editing. Such courses will complement your knowledge and understanding of a topic.

Learning Google Adsense is another example of a course. It covers “Understanding Adsense, Getting started with adsense, configuring ads and more. By studying for one and a half hours you will come away from this course with a good understanding of how Google Adsense works.

When you complete these video courses you get a certificate of completion which can be added to Linkedin Learning, and the relevant PDFs can be included when applying to jobs where these skills are relevant.

Learning pathways

The next step up from one and a half hour courses is the Learning Pathway. Learning Pathways are designed to encompass a variety of skills and knowledge that are required to work as professionals within certain industries or professions.

I recently completed my first Learning pathway: Become a Project Manager and the experience was good. I feel that I did come away from this course having learned about project management. I saw how it relates to projects I have also worked on but also how it could contribute to future projects. Video and television production go well with project management.

The advantage of such a course is that it covers such a breadth of courses that you come away with a deep understanding of the topic. If you want to push further you can take each exam and get the NASBA equivalent in the process. As I live in Europe I didn’t push that far as I don’t know whether it would be recognised.

I am happy to come away from the course with a collection of certificates but I wish they had provided a learning pathway to recognise the entirety of the course, to save on paperwork when applying for jobs.

Continuing Education Credits

Studying Linkedin Learning Courses will provide you with certificates, skills on your Linkedin Learning and new knowledge but it can also count as credit for a number of other certifications of which a few are listed above. I know that many of the units I completed also provide learning credit towards PMI related courses.

When I looked at courses in French I saw that the certifications were the same and this disappoints me. At this moment in time Linkedin Learning is centered on American learning and could benefit from international certifications. Swiss and French Learning bodies should design and produce courses that people can take in Europe and have recognised. In fact the European Union should work towards this.

Constant Learning

We live in an age of constant learning and reskilling and online learning courses are a good method by which to keep our skills, knowledge and understanding up to date. By Europe, the United States, Asia and Africa working on courses that we can study online people who are between contracts could be earning value affordably by following these courses. Learning is constant, and the more variety we have, the better it will be.