Had a friend over last night for a makeshift XML lesson. My softball game was cancelled because the Wrath of God is being unleashed in Atlanta in the form of thunderstorms (and managed to soak my convertible as I left the top off), and instead of hitting the AtlMMUG meeting, I figured I’d do contract that was 2 weeks overdue and making a dear friend not look so good.
I found that actually conveying less information, less details actually helps learning. I know it makes sense if you think about it; you don’t get information overload and you can more easily grasp a concept with just analyzing a small bit of information rather than sorting through a plethora. Still, I had in the past just assumed that if I had a fountain of knowledge, I’d be golden, but I realize in my experiences, some of the knowledge I did manage to get above and beyond the norm really didn’t even register at the time anyway. I had to go through a lot of working through some concepts before I could even comprehend that knowledge, let alone apply it and learn from it.
Anyway, I think it helped tonight. I’m sure my friend is still woozy from all the stuff I went over, but I felt there was a lot I left out. I did it intentionally because I thought the details would just confuse him on an already overwhelming amount of topics; all he asked for was XML, but I went to ASBroadcaster in just 2 hours if that gives you any clue.
Tonight, though, I’m having an afterwork Flash session for some of the programmers in my department; you would think they would need additional info since most programmers I know want all the data, but I’m thinking, for instance, they don’t really care about … well, dang it, I don’t know, hehe. Oh well, we’ll see how it goes.
It’s just really tight to know that I feel “better” at teaching through experience. Phat dude!