From a Facebook status earlier today:
The internet has changed the game of self-taught learning. Not only can you read tutorials, watch YouTube videos, and get 1st class business courses for free, but you can also get instant feedback.
Think about the classroom. You spend a semester learning how to write something. At the end of the semester, your teacher/professor (one person) gives you a grade depending on your ability to apply the lessons learned in class. If you fail to follow the subjective outlines of your teacher, you’re punished with a lower grade.
Add some hashtags on Twitter and send 140 characters into the interwebs
Compare that to the person who sets up a website, posts on social media, and connects Google analytics on the back end. In mere minutes that person has more data, from more people, than an entire semester’s worth of work, and it’s not subjectively biased by the teacher. By putting your work out there you are gaining more feedback in one day than you get in 140 days of schooling.
Having a tool as powerful as the internet, and the free resources that have been created eliminate the need for school.