MCP's and other Learners
So, I know there are a great number of MCP's out here who have any number of exams, classes and certifications under their collective belts. You all have a vested interest in the technology and look to Microsoft Learning to supply a solid portion of the information and training to want and need for all of the projects, deployments, upgrades, and applications you're working on, as well as keeping abreast of the kinds of things that make you more effective, efficient, valuable and make you able to eventually go home at night.
There's another sizable population out here who haven't taken an exam, maybe have taken a course or two (from Microsoft Learning or someone else), and are just as interested in the same goals.
I'm very interested in all of you. How do you best learn? There is a mix for everyone that works best...combinations of:
- Some kind of course (facilitated or e-learning)
- Mentoring (1 to1, team development models)
- Trial and error
- Staging networks and test beds
- Online (Webcasts, blogs, white-papers, technical communities)
- Books, magazines, articles of all stripes
How do you learn best and why?
I get a lot from books as they don't require a battery and I can easily refer back to them. Some magazine/online articles can work if they are tightly scoped to a problem or process. I can get a lot from a class, but I require a very engaging instructor who goes beyond the samples and the step-by-step aspect of some kinds of labs. I get a lot out of sample code and simple projects that I can load into Visual Studio and mess around with. I don't get much from Webcasts. I've found that sometimes e-learning can work for me, if I'm allowed to experiments a bit within the environment. Mentoring, if you can call it that in my work-style, has an interesting place: I bounce a lot of ideas off my colleagues and can come back to my desk with any number of different things to try. Anyway, that's me....
How about you?
