What are your goals and aspirations when it comes to OER? Proofreading precision? Stellar scoping skills? Extreme editing? (Or do you just want to be able fly, like the rest of us?) Reply to this post and share what’s at the top of your list.
Does being able to clone yourself count as a skill? What I wouldn’t give! Or to be able to magically coordinate multiple people in multiple timezones to find a meeting time? So apparently what I want is magic powers, not actual skills 
Tell you what I really want - I wish I could pick up the ability to ice skate instantly! Totally unrelated to OER, but living in Canada & loving hockey, I wish I’d learned as a kid. It is much harder to do when you’re older and understand the potential consequences of that kind of activity…
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At this very moment, I’d love to instantly know how to edit video/audio in Adobe Premier. It’s something I’m currently working on for an archives project and it would be so handy to have the know how of this program right now. I’m making my way thanks to youtube videos and help forums, but it’s been a struggle.
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You can still do it! Next team activity: ice skating? 
@eabrockm, that would be great! @david is our in-house Adobe Premier whiz, so he might be able to share some tips with you.
For my own part, I’d love to be able to pick up new languages at the drop of a hat, not just so I can interact with all the other OER enthusiasts around the world, but also so I can access the troves of other literatures and even play a part in translating them for others to read!
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I wish I could read and absorb at super human speed!
And I’m with @eabrockm. Instant Adobe skills would infinitely improve my efficiency. Can anyone suggest a good intro to the Adobe suite? Where do I begin?
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Slow as it may be, @eabrockm and @LeighKP, I always recommend using the apps’ own step-by-step tutorials when starting out. My skillz with Premiere Pro are not mad, but those that I have are carried over from learning Final Cut Pro some years back, and that only happened because I did the 4-5 hour tutorial that came with the software. It was methodical and reiterative (and a little plodding), but the major tools and processes got anchored properly in my hands and head. You could also do a course somewhere! (Great as online videos are, and intuitive as a UI might be, there’s nothing like a properly designed training program. Especially when you are face-to-face with other humans…!)
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Hahaha “watch the tutorials” is the best origin story!
Learning basic programming and coding.
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I’m with you on the coding thing, Sourav. There are so many super great open source projects that I’d love to contribute to but I have no skills in those areas…
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@christina.hendricks Also, I think it’s almost a life-skill now. Our life is increasingly run by algorithms and we don’t speak the tongue. The master only translates as He deems fit.
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Totally agree, Sourav. Even just knowing enough to know what’s possible and take away some of the mysticism that surrounds coding is important. I once taught myself just enough Python to write a simple web scraper and it was so useful! I get to learn a lot from our developers too (looking at you, @baldur @andrew & @cesar!) but very far from being able to do much of use myself. Would love to pick that up in an instant…
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Hope an Open Book on that is somewhere on the works!
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That’s so true!
I know @dbraunsc has worked on a Programming Fundamentals open textbook, perhaps this might be a good start? I suspect that there are a lot of other OER out there that would be a good entry into the basics - maybe someone like Dave can help narrow in on the best places to start?
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Oh! * downloads and bookmarks *
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Read my mind, @apurva!
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Haha, great minds! 
As a book, I think the Programming Fundamentals Rebus book is a great place to start. 
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If you’re just curious about coding, I would start with the Interactive Games listed at https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Programming_Fundamentals/Introduction . That’s the open course website that supports the book (or that the book supports, depending on your point of view).
My students have edited and contributed to the course content, and those are some of the resources they recommended for starting to learn about coding.
If you want to go further, I would start with Python. SoloLearn has an excellent free Python app / tutorial. There are also other good starting programming experiences on http://code.org. The Programming Fundamentals book and course are designed for more in-depth study when you’re ready.
Let me know if you have any questions!
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@zoe @dbraunsc When I used to have more faith in the efficacy of MOOCs, I used to look for basic coding courses. And now that the market has turned , we have ‘specialised offerings’ like these: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/python-data-products-for-predictive-analytics
Only for a very special few, I am sure.
I’m definitely going to jump into Programming Fundamentals. And thanks @dbraunsc for the additional resources.
