The Magic “How To” Search

Want to find a wealth of information about how to learn just about anything? Typing in just two simple search phrases into your favorite search engine will produce an astounding number of learning resources. The two phrases are “how to” and “how to learn”. Give it a try.

As I’m writing this, if I search on “how to” on Google, here are the first five search results I see:

• eHow – A website that offers a wide variety of articles on how to do just about everything.
• wikiHow – A collaborative writing project with the goal of building the largest online how to manual with thousands of articles currently available.
• HowToDoThings.com – Another large collection of how to articles.
• Video How To Results – A huge listing of how to videos at video.google.com.
• WonderHowTo.com – A site where they hand-select and curate the best instructional videos from over 1,700 other websites.

That’s just the first five search results listed and already it’s amazing what one can learn from just these five sources. Searching on “how to learn” will produce an equally robust set of learning options.

Do you have a specific subject or topic area you’d like to learn about? Just add that to your how to search. For example, if I wanted to learn about mathematics and I type in “how to learn mathematics” into my search engine, one of the results I get is math.com, a fantastic site that offers self-directed, online math instruction on topics from basic math to calculus.

And don’t restrict your how to searches just to search engines. Go to a site like YouTube and use the same search phrases and you’ll find an abundance of video tutorials on just about any subject you can think of.

I think you get the idea. Keep these two search phrases in your self-education toolkit when you’re exploring your learning options.