- Chris
- October 11, 2013
When I left the womb of General Assembly and found myself out here alone without an instructor I worried. How was I going to continue learning, and learning well without formal instruction? I was not only concerned about the latter, but I found myself concerned about recreating the motivational environment you have when you’re surrounded by people eager to learn.
An answer quickly materialized for me in Team Treehouse and Lynda.com (I add the .com at the end of Lynda, because otherwise you may think I’m referring to a person!). These two websites are geared towards technology; where Team Treehouse is focused primarily on front-end and back-end web development, and Lynda offers tutorials on a more broad range of subjects.
If you’re new to web development; be it the front-end or back-end I would recommend you check out Team Treehouse.
The Treehouse keeps the tutorials upbeat with a sense of humor, and presents the material in an easy to digest manner. I also appreciate the quizzes that pop up often at the end of the videos, which add reinforcement, and prove if you were actively listening or just passively listening. You also collect points and unlock badges. This may sound gimmicky, but in today’s video game world of X-Box and PlayStation it works.
Lynda is also a great website that has helped me out of a bind more than a few times. Lynda will also help when there are those moments when you need just a little more instruction, or a good video example that you won’t find on YouTube or Google. Lynda can be a little hit and miss with their videos, so if you become a member you’ll have to preview the tutorial to make sure the instructor is going to do it for you, and that the video is up to date.
Though Lynda requires a bit more of searching, the site helps tremendously if you’re running out of time on a project and you need an answer fast. I would highly recommend Chris Coyier’s video on WordPress theme building if you’re beginning to learn how php works with HTML and CSS.
Team Treehouse and Lynda.com do come with a fee, but they are very reasonable considering the wealth of information you receive. Lynda comes in at $37.50 a month, and Treehouse comes in at $25 a month.
When you approach the unavoidable moment where throwing the laptop at the wall seems like the only reasonable response, take a step back, breath, and please calmly place it back down on the desk and check out these websites.
I promise you’ll feel better!