(Image: Creative Commons Attribution: Joi)

Clay Shirky was recently quoted as saying that publishing is not a job anymore but a button and that all it takes to publish these days is a WordPress install.

Well, I’ve been learning to install WordPress instances on a hosted Apache server via the Ubuntu terminal. I was actually merely following written instructions tho, but learning nontheless.

Lots of passwords involved, which prompted me to start using a handy password manager called KeePass.

On the topic of “on the job” learning, Joi Ito remarked in a recent post:

“(…) My sister calls me an “interest driven learner.” I think that’s code for “short attention span” or “not a good long term planner” or something like that. (…)

Although reading the dictionary and the encyclopedia from cover to cover may seem a bit extreme, it often feels like that’s what we’re asking kids to do who go through formal education. (…)

I wonder whether we should be structuring the future of learning as online universities where you are asked to do the equivalent of reading the encyclopedia from cover to cover online. Shouldn’t we be looking at the Internet as an amazing network enabling “The Power of Pull” and be empowering kids to learn through building things together rather than assessing their ability to complete courses and produce the right “answers”? (…)”

I must agree; I’ve been learning a good deal of WordPress configuration and CSS design lately by looking up what I need to know as I go about the project.

With codecademy, on the other hand, I got stuck learning javascript because the exercises were not driven by my immediate practical needs. And those emails trying to lure me into “building my own blackjack game” don’t really…

Or then it just means that, like Joi, I’m a just an “interest driven learner”.