Learning new skills is a great way to improve your career prospects - but it isn't quite as simple as completing a course or reading a book from cover-to-cover. These techniques are great at laying the cornerstones of competency, to become fully skilled in an area of expertise will require three phases.
The first is to
establish the key structures of the skill - to understand a topic, you must first establish the breadth of the subject, any allied skills, and build a basic understanding of the key principles involved. From here, the second stage is to establish a
self-contained understanding of the core skills, and develop the ability to
research and resolve any problems you may have in implementing the skill. Finally, the latter process of skills building is refinement - slowly
honing and expanding the scope of your knowledge as you use it in a professional capacity.
Key Structure Development
Books are a good way of getting a solid overview of a particular subject area. With high information density, they can be hard to digest at first but persevere and you'll be rewarded with a solid base in your chosen topic. Even skim reading can be beneficial if you seek to build a lighter understanding upon which to build later.
Manuals are similar to books, but are generally a little more prescriptive and serve more as a reference for all skill levels. Although more useful as a reference for intermediary learning, having a complete technical reference can be very useful in becoming acquainted with any technical subject.
Tutorials are perhaps the best tool available for the self-directed learner. Whether from a book, magazine or the internet, an introductory step-by-step method of teaching is (in my experience) the best way to break down the mystery of an unfamiliar subject.
Education and training - or any other directed learning (workshops, presentations etc.) - are great ways of sowing the seeds of knowledge for a given subject. Although they usually come at a price, directed courses as part of a college course or university degree can provide a great foundation of skills - and are structured in such a way that can't be paralleled by self-tuition.
Don't despair if your university days are in the past - there are still plenty of courses available as night classes or via distance learning - and no doubt your local college will have a comprehensive listing as to what is on offer. For some, self-directed learning isn't the preferred means of broaching a new skill, so taking an introductory course can really help you get started.
Skills Independence
Once the foundations of a skill have been laid, the key to maturing the skill into something upon which you can leverage in your career is to develop usage of the skill independent to any tutorial, or prescribed manner.
Self-directed experimentation refers simply to unguided usage of the skill in question - for instance, if you are taking up web design, you could develop your skills to a more advanced level using the basic skills you have already acquired by embarking on your own projects - setting up a web site of your own, for instance. This usage outside of the structure of a tutorial or book will help cement it in your mind.
Perhaps more importantly, going it alone on your own projects you will eventually run into something with which you haven't dealt with before - problem solving is one of the key things to get right if you plan to work in IT - if you don't like the idea of running into problems in a daily basis, a career in IT may not be the best choice!
Essentially problem solving comes down to knowledge of the resources available to you within a certain skill domain, and the method through which to find your solution. As with so many things in life, Google is your friend - if you become stumped by an error message a web search may very well resolve your problem.
Refinement
On-the-job exposure refers to simple everyday usage of a given skill - anything you work with will slowly become second nature as you are exposed to it over time. It is this applicative usage of you skills which is the key part of turning the core skills you have learned into finely tuned ability.
Once your skills are more mature, using blogs and the internet can be a great way to keep up with the latest trends, tips, techniques and foibles within your area of expertise. While regular usage as part of your job may exercise the main areas of your expertise, in order to explore new and developing parts of your skill set you will need to keep on reading and learning from external sources. There are many blogs out there dedicated to niche programming (and other IT-related) topics - keeping up to date will keep you ahead of the curve. You may even consider starting your own blog or resource site, if you have knowledge to share!
