Learning is not a part time thing, learning is not a some of the time thing, learning is a full time thing. We are always learning whether we like it or not. Our children to move to take their exams now will be breathing a sigh of relief that it is all over, well at least until next academic year. They will be enjoying what small rest bite they can get while awaiting their exam grades to see if they are successful in their application for a place either in further or higher education.

The sad thing is even as i am typing this some 20 years after i, myself completed my degree i have never stopped learning. I have had to attend courses most years either for personal or professional gain (it has usually been the latter). But it has and still is an enjoyable process. Committment is one big problem though. Committing to any course bit it on Coursera, OASA, or even the OU is a committment of time. With which sacrafices have to be made. That trip out with the spouse, day out with the kids. Might not seem much on the face of it, but mounted up over 5 or 6 years (the time it takes to complete a degree at the OU for example it starts to hurt). For many people learning becomes a way of life, even once their course is over they are so addicted to learning, it simply has to be another course! Otherwise what to do with all that spare time.

I have not taken on another formal course as intensive as my degree since graduating those 20 years back. But i do find myself reading loads still. The wife would argue, all those books i have in the shelf and seldom do i pick on up. True i am ashamed to say it. I used to read a few books a month / year, then it stopped. Though my purchases from Amazon never slowed! But contrary to what might be thought my desire to learn has neither slowed or stopped but how i do it has changed. Various youtube channels have been followed and bookmarked. The Wiki is in constant use. I Google anything that comes to mind for a read.

This week its been Marianna Trench and Marianna Challenge, wow who would have thought it, deepest part of the Earth and its deeper than Mount Everest is high.

Week before i wanted to know about the space race. Decided to write some e-learning material about it as i went. Why not if we’re learning something new, document it. Occupational hazard when your a tutor. Eitherway i think what this shows is, although the method or media from which we learn may have changed, the process has not. Media makes learning more accessible as not only are we able to access more informative sites like the Wiki i previously mentioned, we’re also able to glean from like minded people, in a way never before possible. I can only wish during the days where i struggled with my maths in recent years that all this was here then! Oh well..

Now where was that Wiki on Fermats Last Theorem!