Studying Progress Week 3

I am on week three of studying and today I am up to 139 hours of coding practice. This includes previous classwork on Java and Android. One thing I have figured out is that I get bored when just working on one learning resource for too long. I have decided to stagger the learning with websites and books to keep it interesting. So as I was looking around for more resources I stumbled upon Alice and downloaded Alice 2 which contained tutorials.

I found the link to this programming practice through the Oracle website. I was moving along with no problems on tutorials 1-3. But I ran into a known bug in tutorial 4 with placing a beach chair on the grass. After I reached this I could not get past it. Overall this seems like a good program to teach early programming but not for those ready for more of a challenge. I could have spent a few days placing pictures onto scenes and dragging and dropping commands but decided against it since time is important.  http://www.alice.org/index.php.

As an alternative, I downloaded Android Studio which is used to make Android apps. I had it on my old laptop but needed it again. I had gone to the Google Study Jam last year and took the Android for Beginners class on Udacity but missed the last class due to family illness and did not complete the program. I decided to start up again today and am going to add this to my to do list on my study plan.

Overall, I do feel like the learning is progressing. I am working on a plan to get more study hours in. My goal is 20hrs a week but I have fallen short the first couple weeks. I did set a high goal considering I work full time, so I am happy with 10-15hrs per week but still would like to aim for 20hrs. 

I have started a meetup at the local library to learn java with a first meeting in February. I believe this should help with the learning hours goal as well as get some other interested people to attend meetups with.