SkillDisplay - Skills and Dependencies: How They Relate to Each Other

Thanks to Christina from SkillDisplay for sharing!

Two weeks ago we posted a step-by-step tutorial on how you can attain your first skill and maybe you’ve taken a shot at it and are already able to display your first Self-SkillUp button.

This time we present the following topics:

• What should I consider before learning a new skill?
• What are dependencies?

Every skill on our platform has an overview with a description that explains what the skill is about and what you’ll learn. If you decide you’d like to earn this specific skill, then you have various links to choose from which lead you to  relevant articles. After reading this information,  you can test your knowledge by going through the goals and checking out  if you have an answer to everything listed there.

As we mentioned in one of our recent blog posts, every skill has a description, goals, links and tags. Some also have prerequisites, meaning that  certain knowledge is needed for attaining this skill and helping you achieve your goal.

This is the easiest and most common way to learn new things. For example, before you were able to walk on your feet you had to discover how to crawl because you needed to get to know your body better first. And as always, expertise in any area is based on a solid basic knowledge.

SkillDisplay uses the same concept to make your learning experience as rich and fun as possible. Let’s say you want to attain the skill “Role: Editor”. How would you be able to understand what an editor is supposed to do, if you didn’t have a clue as to what a CMS is? It is just not possible. If you do not know whata content management system is, you cannot know what the editor does. Hence the “About a CMS” skill is an essential prerequisite for attaining the SelfSkillUp-Button “Role: Editor”.

In summary it can be said that  in order to learn a new skill, you have to understand the dependencies. Let’s do a little thought experiment. Think of any skill you want to. As an example, we could use something related to TYPO3 like TypoScript menus. So what do you need to know before being able to work with TypoScript menus? It is self-evident that you need to know what TYPO3 is first. Knowing that there is a frontend as well as a backend is fundamental and of course syntax and basics of TypoScript are necessary.

So let’s get started: Visit our website and learn some skills, step by step!