October 9, 2012

The Best Way to Learn is to Teach

Thor, the character in an American movie of the same name, is a superhero who carries a hammer that holds the incredible power of thunder.  This was the only understanding I had of “Thor”.

Recently, while working on Resource Map,  I encountered another type of Thor.  This time it was not a person, but a software code library. The idea of learning a new type of code was appealing to me and I was interested in learning more about it and experimenting.  Yet as time went by, I was never able to find the time to properly start, not even on the weekends.  From week to week, it always seem to be at the bottom of my to-do list.


As the weeks passed by, I began to lose hope that I would find the time to invest in this.  Then a surprise happened.  I received an invitation from the Phnom Penh Ruby Meet-Up Group asking me to give a talk and share some of my knowledge.  With less than a week to prepare, I decided that this would be a good opportunity for me to learn about Thor and share what I discovered with the rest of the group.

Over the following days, I set out searching for any information I could find about Thor.  I searched everything from wikipedia to video tutorials to blog posts to documentations so that I could build up my knowledge.  I read, hacked and finally was able to prepare a presentation for the group.  Below is the presentation:



One of the best ways to learn something is to teach others about it.  The benefit is not only your learning, but validating your learning and sharing your knowledge with others.  It helps you to create a community of learning and growing which can often be a motivating factor in learning more.

We all have experiences where we’ve been students and we’ve all had an opportunity to teach our knowledge to others. What are some ways that you’ve seen learning experiences be fun and productive?


By: Chanmann Lim

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