A friend of mine was recently given the assignment to create a software program using a programming code he had no experience with. The students had no prior knowledge of the code, and they were given no material to help them learn it. Fortunately, he was a wiz at finding information online and had soon gathered all the resources he would need.

If you're an online student, chances are you'll need to know how to find learning material online. The Pick the Brain blog recently published a post about this very topic. Here's a blurb:

"The web is an amazing educational resource. The quantity of information available on any given topic is more than most people will ever need, and probably more than they can handle. This vast amount of information is the web's greatest strength, but also creates major usability problems. If you try to educate yourself online without a clear strategy, you'll quickly find yourself frustrated and misinformed.

Effective online education goes beyond finding answers. It requires you to process numerous information sources, evaluate them based on credibility and relevance, and piece together a Mosaic-like picture of the truth."

Check out the full article for tips on how to locate and comprehend online material.