
Code School is Amazing - PStamatiou
http://paulstamatiou.com/code-school-learn-by-doing
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atgm
I saw this once and was immediately turned off by the videos. Not only is it
harder to go to a specific place and look at things again, but as someone with
hearing problems, videos without captions are an immediate deal-breaker for
me. I really wish the web wouldn't turn toward video instead of written
material; one of the reasons I've enjoyed the web so much is its focus on
reading instead of listening.

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fferen
+1. Plus the speed of reading is many times higher than the speed of
speaking/listening. Also, videos often cause me to space out after a few
seconds and do something else, thinking, "I'll listen in the background." This
usually doesn't work.

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kmfrk
This is the start-up field I currently have the biggest interest in. Right
now, I am using Codelesson, and while the course I am taking has yet to start,
it shows some interesting promise - the biggest of which is the names of the
people teaching the courses and the badges awarded to your public profile for
completing them.

The toughest nut to crack, to me, is convincing potential employers of the
importance of the courses, and what they - and the gamification badges - tell
about the user.

I am trying to think of ways to leverage services like these for (extra)
resumé-building, at least for people with little hands-on experience in start-
ups and companies. Just look at [Facebook's
puzzles](<https://www.facebook.com/careers/puzzles.php>).

It's difficult to gauge skill and qualification, which applies both to finding
some metric for the usefulness of all these courses and to the people who
complete them (and in the way they do it).

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quinndupont
Damn that's expensive for an unknown quantity/quality.

I'll stick to book and free online tutorials.

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harpastum
"The winning formula is screencasts + code challenges + gamification."

This is also the formula the Khan Academy is using. I think they're both on to
something pretty huge.

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kmfrk
"Screencast" is a humongous simplification of what makes Khan Academy great.
His teaching style is paramount to its success.

The equation wouldn't work, if the screencasts weren't great.

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jacques_chester
It looks very polished and seems to fit in nicely with the common findings of
psych about learning.

The main thing missing is spaced repetition.

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apas
Cool new service for sure. Thanks for sharing, Paul.

