Fragments

Learning Practices Change, But Learning Principles Remain

August 21st, 2008 | by Marjan Bradesko |

Remote labs. Google. Wikis and other Web 2.0 tools. That is how we practice and learn today. All the activities are performed outside of our production network - one of the many benefits of remote labs. We configure devices, progress through exercises, monitor and compare the effects of our actions with information in the lab guide. Curious, we try things that we are not told to do. When observing things that we do not completely understand (maybe in the command output), we consult the almighty web - go to Google, and check wikis, forums, blogs - and join communities. We try all the second-generation Internet tools that are available.

But is this principle of learning new? Not at all. Only the medium has changed since the days when I had to learn something practical. Let me share my instructor story from the last decade of the previous millennium. No, I am not »ancient history«, but the story is about legacy - a legacy technology called IBM Systems Network Architecture (SNA). This great technology influenced several IT principles we use today. I had to teach a Cisco SNA course for multiprotocol administrators - who, in addition to IP, needed to master some »obscure« protocols. I had to teach the course for the first time, in a foreign language, far away from my home country, to an unknown audience. I attended the course in March, passed the exam in April, and had to teach the course in the second week of May. Tough schedule. There were several labs in the course, hundreds of acronyms, thousands of lines of strange output from routers….

I gathered a couple of routers and built a small pod. I collected some of the famous heavy IBM Redbooks. And then I played with the equipment. I followed the Cisco lab guide, configured what needed to be done, and followed the instructions step by step. Definitely not enough experience for an instructor. I repeated the labs, modified certain configurations, endlessly used the »show ?« and »debug« commands, and examined tons of output. IBM and the Internet were not friends then; despite the fact that Internet search was available (I used Altavista, Google was not born yet), not much information was available about IBM SNA technology. My »Google« of the time was the table of contents in the Redbook. It worked. My »wiki« was a huge glossary at the end of the book, full of »links«. (Very often at the description of a certain acronym I only found »See somewhere else…. :(« After some flipping through pages I eventually found it.) Through all of this process, I learned. Maybe slower than learners do these days. But the principles were the same. And when I finished the class, I was impressed by having one of the best scores ever - for the course I had feared. It happened because I prepared well; I practiced with the labs and got additional information by exploring my »pre-web« tools (books). In today`s Web 2.0 times we use faster and more efficient techiques, but we all learn by the same old principles.