On day 2 of Developing on AWS we dived into subjects like S3, DyanamoDB and Lambda. S3 was the first AWS service I learned when I first started going into the black hole that is AWS and it’s land of many services. I think the reason S3 was my gateway into this fun and frustrating world is because I could understand the similarity of the concept to something I was already familiar with – the file directory on my PC. When you start to explore this world of Awesome Web Sh*t that is AWS it helps to have something you’re familiar with as a starting point. The reason for that is largely based on the fact that the learning curve for AWS is a big one. Between navigating an unfamiliar interface (that changes like the weather) to learning about new terminologies, new services and a better understanding of what exactly “the cloud” is it can be a firehose of information that you can easily drown in. One of the reasons I like AWS Educate as a platform to teach and learn about AWS technologies is that it provides little boosts to your ego as you’re building confidence in what you’re learning which incentivizes a learner to continue and even embrace the failures along the way because you realize that’s when you learn the most.
Failures are important
Failures are important. I remind my students of that when they struggle with understanding or completing an assignment and during our labs I kept repeating that mantra to soothe my own ego and frustration on successfully completing the lab.
As we enter in to Day 3 and I’m preparing to finish up on last night’s homework, here are my three takeaways from Day 2.
- I had a good reminder that the pace of learning is slower than the pace of teaching.
- Sometimes information will come at you at the rate of firehose being used to pour water into a cup. It’s a lot – too much and too fast. That’s the reality of many things but that doesn’t mean you’ll drown. Come up for air when you need to (take a break) and know that there is no time limit on your learning and the resources are abundant with videos and documentation long after the class is complete.
- Slow down. Sometimes when I work on a lab I skim the instructions (something I advise my students against) and want to get right into the lab work. Sometimes that works out okay and sometimes it leads to frustration. Frustration was the feeling for yesterday so I grabbed a few carrots and slowly started munching on them re-reading the instructions slowly going back and forth between the lab and instructions and saw that I missed a few important lines. The act of keeping my hands busy and the sound of crunching carrots helped me focus on reading the instructions (is that weird?).
If you’d like to learn more about AWS and how to bring it’s advantages to your business or teaching the skills to your classroom – please feel free to reach out. I’ll be happy to help share this Awesome Web Sh*t.
Thank you to my sponsor Skyroam!
I became a fan of this tool when COVID required more of a reliance on reliable, high-speed Internet access at home. AWS brings endless opportunities but Internet access is required which is one reason I appreciate having this tool whenever needed. If you are limited by internet infrastructure or are quickly maxing out on your cell provider’s mobile hotspot you should check out Skyroam Solis. Learn more about Skyroam using my affiliate link here.
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