I’m interested in seeing where people are gleaning the knowledge they acquire to flex their web-muscles.
Obviously a poll in a forum is slightly skewed, so it would be particularly interesting to hear from people who tend not to post usually - if you aren’t a regular contributor on the forums, or don’t pop in to ask questions, why not?
For those that are on here regularly, where are the current hotspots for trends, news and sage advice (other than right here, obviously!).
The University has no fault…
I would say Forums Q&A but unfortunately I don’t go further than GC lately, so that would not be true at the moment.
I learn from all of the mentioned sources. I love books, they feel great to read. Blogs by experienced designers (Jason Santa Maria, Elliot Jay Stock etc) and developers are always interesting. Forums provides more of a discussion and become more interactive, letting you share your knowledge, which is fun.
I learn from all options listed in the poll, but I also find out alot more by talking to people and asking questions etc…my preferred option! :agree:
I learn by trial and error mostly. Though I guess the original knowledge came from somewhere, so I chose Books, Articles (From many sources), Blogs (articles), Forum Q&A. 
Trial and error a lot here too. Also from colleagues, SP and google searches.
Matter of fact, I ended up here after just such a google search.
[FONT=“Georgia”]It still amazes me that people spend money buying web-design books and magazines. All the info is online for free!
I have a couple sources I keep returning to, and rarely venture away from them because they’ve proven to be good.
Sitepoint
Tizag (for PHP)
Quirksmode (for Javascript)
YourHTMLSource (for general looking up)
AListApart (great ideas and articles)
And recently Raffles told me about Regular-Expressions.info , which is the go-to place to learn the dark-arts of REGEX.
That’s about it.
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[FONT=“Georgia”]For art and design, mostly I speak one-on-one with my art teacher (aka, Datura ) or my sister, who is an amazing graphic artist.
For photography I do a lot of googling, but find myself getting the best and most reliable info from Ken Rockwell. Also Jim Talkington from [URL=“http://www.prophotolife.com/”]ProPhotoLife.com .
I don’t buy photography or design magazines, but I do buy National Geographic (especially old issues… whenever I happen to see old ones in garage sales, etc, I buy on the spot!) or flip through a couple still-life painting books I have sitting on my shelf.
I don’t see the point of buying “tutorial” magazines. I rather own examples of good work.
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Growing up without the possibility of learning via computer—because they did not exist then—the only source was books and teachers/mentors. I still use books for basic new stuff, but I have added online articles and fora. Mostly I experiment a lot, I love the discovery by observation, especially in my field of knowledge, which is the artistic media. I am still amazed at the wealth of knowing that I can acquire at this stage in my life/profession.
Learning has become much faster today because of the possibilities online. You all have no idea how wonderful this is in comparison to times past. But nothing beats a good mentor for getting pointed into the right direction. I had two of them in my life, and I am forever grateful for their help. I grew on my own, but they helped the seeds of my knowledge sprout.
From the age of 7 up to 19, my grandmother bought me a yearly subscription to NG. I was mostly mesmerised by the photography and the maps, but sometimes I’d read the articles, particularly as I got older. If I had schoolwork that required pictures, I’d often hunt through the NGs and cut them out. It made my homework pretty damn good, but boy do I regret cutting things out now that I leaf through my collection of NGs!
I learn web stuff mostly through doing searches on Google, and from blogs I subscribe to via RSS. For CSS I increasingly find myself looking at the Sitepoint reference first, then using Google.
This pool lacks of one important option - practice. 
That’s the most efficient source of knowledge for me.
from the internet, TV, people’s talking etc.
Practice, trial & error, sitepoint and other forums, developer blogs/articles, or a book if it’s a massive/comprehensive or new subject. I stopped looking at magazines years ago, as they started becoming full of more advertisements than actual content.
trail and error is a great way of learning.internet ,books,an communication with the peoples is also a way of learning,
With regard to Art, my dad used to get Draw It, Paint It booklets in the local shops, we weren’t that fancy for NG 
but yeah i loved those lil booklets and helped me loads with my drawing etc and even got me into pastels which I loved!! :tup:
I forgot to mention earlier I’m also a fan of video tutorials, I would opt to see how something is done before reading about it, so if I’ve a problem resolving something with my web design or graphics I’m always on the look out for a vid tut first
well i prefer learning most of the things i wish to know from internet or online…it is the major source i use for to clear my doubts.
I’m a very conservative learner. Books is the route I take whenever I take on a new task. I don’t know why, but physical books delude me into thinking I’ll learn better.
Online places to learn…well, there are so many resources that I’d likely bring down the forum were I to post my list of links. 
It depends what I’m learning.
For work - I tend to learn from trial and error, fora and online articles.
I also like researching history for which I prefer books to any other method - maybe because it’s a hobby and because I spend so much time online, a physical book or my e-reader are a nice change.
I don’t think I’ve learnt anything new in GC lately. BUT having said that, Ryan Reese’s post about the Rubiks cube inspired me to learn how to do it (via YouTube) when I was unable to work for a few days. So without GC I wouldn’t have learnt how to do that!
I believe in books ! Its are very complex (for advanced users )