Joys of Random Learning

I find random learning a lot of fun. I love it when I’m presented with something to learn that I might not have otherwise sought out on my own. If you don’t engage in any conscious random learning, I encourage you to do so.

There are a few ways I engage in random learning on a regular basis. Here are two.

The first is Stumbleupon. This is a service that helps you discover and share great websites. You click their Stumble! icon and they deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of millions of other websurfers with interests similar to you. I also get periodic emails from Stumbleupon alerting me to web pages targeted at my own interests. It’s amazing how often I’ve found their recommendations incredibly well focused on what I enjoy learning about.

Another great random learning mechanism I use is Wikipedia’s Random Article feature. Visit Wikipedia’s Main Page and click on Random Article among the left hand navigation links. You’ll be presented with a random article from Wikipedia’s vast repository of knowledge articles.

Do you have any other ways you engage in random learning? I’d love to hear about them.