Free Code Camp Is Like The Codacademy I Used To Remember

I have no idea why I didn't use this sooner; I had been subscribed to the FreeCodeCamp Blog for a few months now, as it had lots of little bits of coding news and things like that. I honestly thought it was solely a blog with new ideas on, and maybe a little side community!

However, the main FreeCodeCamp itself is made up of it's free main web design "certification" course, alongside local communities and a scheme in which you can contribute coding to non-profits later on in said course. I nags you once for a donation, near the beginning of the course itself, and that's it.

And I have to say I am impressed. It reminds me of the old design of Codecademy, which would encourage you to start learning from the homepage itself. Although FCC isn't quite from the homepage (there are a couple of pages of logging in and introduction to the site itself), the barriers between the homepage and learning are very small, and you start earning challenge points from your first log in.

This challenge point thing is the one idea that keeps me coming back to FCC at the moment... Each goal is incredibly small, maybe change a piece of code here or there (based on a similar example in the learning materials)... So it's very quick to delve in and start learning, even if there has been some time between learning sessions. This has the effect of making it much more likely you will return to it, and means you're also likely to learn for much longer. This is the kind of concept I hadn't quite been able to find up to now... But FreeCodeCamp definitely ticks the boxes for accessibility and ease of use.

The Big Problem with Gamification, GTD, Task Lists, Motivation...

Task lists are great. There's an abundance of research that shows even ticking a box for the smallest of goals fires off all kinds of chemicals that make you feel good and encourage you to complete (and create!) more tasks than you can possibly imagine. Meanwhile, sites like DuoLingo and KhanAcademy keep a tally of how many days in a row you have engaged with the sites, reinforcing ongoing interaction with them and keeping the consistency of visits up (resulting in more effective learning).

The biggest problem is when that consistency is broken. From this week, I'm going to be involved in work away from home potentially two days a week. Having come back from my first week of this new routine, I have found my previously unblemmished record of learning now replaced with an empty hole for one of the days.

Now, DuoLingo offered a cheeky solution for keeping my streak intact by paying nearly £3 to restore it. I understand they are ultimately a business, and to be fair it isn't too different to those apps that lock away your internet so it isn't a distraction; unlocking it either at a fixed time or by paying a fee to the company. However these ultimately frustrate me, as I'd rather pay money to a charity for missing my goals than paying the priviledge for a company to reduce my services.

On top of that, it is only a solution for my use of that one site... It doesn't fix my record for sites like TypingClub or KhanAcademy (although these two visualise your learning in a better way, either as an average of a week like TypingClub or showing your stats for a month as well as daily, like Khan).

I therefore wanted to announce a new project tentatively called Goalst. It is an app that aims to do one thing: enable you to focus on a single preset task consistently every day... Or a one-task task-list. It specifically needs to be the easiest possible task you can think of.

This is for two reasons: firstly, and I can say this from experience, in the depths of depression sometimes even getting dressed, getting washed, or brushing your teeth can be forgotten. For the longest time my "Goalst" has been simply to brush my teeth. Which sounds ridiculous. But, by being the smallest possible goal I can think of, it's incredibly easy to convince myself to do and earn myself a success. It is one bonus to my health and wellbeing that, at times, would not otherwise be achieved if it wasn't for the sake of ticking a box.

The second thing is that single act of ticking a box, regardless of how easy, starts that chain reaction of chemicals I mentioned earlier. It motivates you to add more tasks, and can kickstart you to keep your consistency with more difficult tasks. For the average person it's a catalyst to keep to your other goals... To someone in a mental health crisis, I think the benefits are also obvious.

The aim of the app will be solely on that one task... It will specifically not offer any kind of integration with other app systems, or more than one task. The whole point is anyone can slot it into whatever organisation system (if any) a person has, so a person can open a clean interface with nothing but a tickbox and no horrifying stack of tasks. I might include features to keep a streak or show stats for the month, as well as a "start anew" button (for people who haven't used it in a while because they haven't needed it, and want to start afresh). I may even include some way to push the completed task to other task list sites, but the point isn't to replace these sites nor to rely on them as part of your system; it is meant for periods of "Crisis" in your life (whether it is extreme anxierty, or even procrastination... Whatever a crisis in not meeting your life goals is to you).

Anyway. I'll start coming up with designs... I understand the logic to code it, but still need to learn more on how to code an interface (in Python).

Lingvist and Duolingo for language learning

Along with my other learnings, I have recently become addicted to a web app called Lingvist. It is one of a number of gamified language learning sites, but I guess rather than earning XP from specific lessons, you can learn by the card and dip right in and out whenever you feel like it. Whether you want to do 1 or 1001, the main page just has a new flashcard with a missing word you need to solve.

The story behind the site is very fascinating, in a nutshell, being born from the desire of the developer to combine machine learning with memorization in order to help him learn French; all the way to the point he was able to pass a French language fluency course. When he realised a lot of people were interested in it, he started hiring developers to help him work on it, and it exploded from there.

Basically, it times when to next repeat a flashcard based on how many times you have answered that card correctly previously... Cards you keep answering correctly will appear less and less often (as your brain stores it in long-term memory), whilst cards you answer incorrectly will occur more often. It's the kind of tried and tested research-based learning that makes sense for its simple format.

And yet, I mention DuoLingo too? That is correct. I see both sites as complementary to each other and focused on different goals (even if I'm not quite as addicted to Duolingo right now). Whereas Lingvist focuses on building your vocabulary quickly, Duolingo feels more focused on the context of that vocabulary and the common phrases of the language. It means I reach a point in both apps where I already know certain words or phrases so I can speed ahead- but it never feels like duplication, as aiming to tick the box for studying both sites each day means I'm performing more gymnastics with that knowledge. And with Lingvist, which I'm slightly newer too, it just means those flashcards I'm already strong with just get pushed to the back of the pack quicker. Although I can't show any statistics to prove it, it feels like I am learning something greater than the combination of each service in isolation. It doesn't mean within 24 hours I'm fluent in German- but regardless it feels like I am progressing quickly.

Typing Club and Touch Typing

So, in my current educated-oriented mood, I decided to broaden my horizons. I have been an avid use of Pocket (known years ago as Read it later) for a number of years now, mostly as a repository of all the articles I've read (as, inevitably, I would lose articles that might be useful for academic argument... Or pointless internet arguments...) but also as time went on for reading things later. I was also probably one of the few people that loved Mozilla's decision to purchase and integrate Pocket into Firefox, and also quite like Pocket recommendations (one of the rare places you can find curated, intelligent, content I've found... Like a Google News/Facebook Feed of more in-depth articles... And zero Daily Mail). Anyway, this suggestion for additional learning came from one of those recommendations.

It is an article about someone who recently learned to touch-type at 29, and how it has improved his workflow as a programmer. Fitting the bill of being both 29 and learning programming, it seemed to make sense I may as well try to start learning touch-typing as well. It's something I'll aim to do daily, alongside my programming course.

My first thoughts when visiting the aptly named TypingClub were that it was very reminiscent of DuoLingo from its home page. It is clear they have gone for a similar gamification route (where tasks are cut up into small 3 minute chunks, and you are given "badges" or achievements for doing a certain amount each day). That is fine by me; I have seen through learning German that Gamifying it turns it from a chore to something incredibly addictive, that you can quickly dip in and out of (usually meaning you end up spending more time with it each day than you might have done learning traditionally, because of its easy pick-up-and-play design). My only gripe is it doesn't quite have the polish of DuoLingo in some places... The results screen looks pretty ugly, and isn't helped by having an ad at the bottom. Although I guess it is better to have it on your results, rather than while you're trying to type!!

Starting from the beginning turns your keyboard from that familiar thing you can just about "pretend" to touch type, to something entirely alien where you find yourself constantly pausing to think where the next key is, and constantly hitting the wrong key because of muscle memory. And yet, as you start learning more finger/key placements, you slowly find something "clicks", like something is being reconnected in your brain, and you start to find the placements tallying up with that map in your brain again... Just that the map now covers all your fingers, rather than a few. Seriously though, those first couple of sessions learning to touch-type just random combinations of F and J repeatedly feel so alien... Suddenly it's like the letters look completely unfamiliar, the keyboard feels unfamiliar; it's so strange to think how our brains chunk up the words and know how to spell those words from that muscle memory, whilst changing up how you type completely shatters all that and feels like you're relearning to type all over again.

Anyway, I ended up spending 20 minutes with an average typing speed of 14wpm, which interestingly was consistently well above the minimum speed to pass. It doesn't compare with the 40wpm I can type while writing this (I most certainly didn't write this post as slow as my touch-typing speed!), but hopefully it will make this one task that takes up most of my life more efficient.