Would someone nice please lecture me either through email or through the phone on how to learn microcontrollers? I have a newborn and an older son so I am kind of busy at times. If it is by phone, I just ask that the person is an adult. Thank you.
Arduino isn't the only microcontroller I have. I have to confess that I have a bunch of brands but never really got started.
westfw:
Have you tried Jeremy Blum's videos? Start here: http://www.element14.com/community/videos/1572
Thank you. I watched the first video and I have mixed feelings about the explanations. Thank you anyway.
Yeah; there's a wide variety of styles for tutorial videos, depending on whether the student has some software background but not hardware, hardware background but no software, creative background but no tech, tech but no electronics/software, etc.
I wonder if it would make sense to organize a sort of on-line "class" based on some series of existing on-line videos (Blum's, Freid's, Sparkfun's, etc) Each week the class would watch a particular video, try to do whatever was described, and start a forum topic (somewhere) to ask questions, discuss things, help each other, etc. (Sort-of the way Stanford is running their free on-line classes, I think.) The original video creator could participate, and maybe add videos to fill in holes that become apparent, but that wouldn't be necessary. You could be unfaithful, and supplement one creator's videos with material from elsewhere "This week we're going to watch MIT's video of a lecture on C looping structures, which isn't specific to Arduino at all."
The main problem is that the video tutorials seem to cover a very broad range. If you master all of Blum's tutorials, you'll know a lot about various obscure technologies that you might never use. And it could be tough to get the referenced parts.
(that, and it may be difficult to get "Teaching assistants" to cover all the classes. Still, my perception is that the number of people willing to discuss a topic in forums is much larger than the number of people with the skill and confidence needed to create videos, so it might work pretty well even with just the usual drifting mass of "experts."
A lot of tutorials seem to be short on "assignments." And of course actually grading/correcting assignments, or doing them in the absence of such feedback, is somewhat difficult.
It would be an interesting experiment.
After watching that first video, I was of the opinion that guy (Offensive comment removed by Forum Admininistrator, Warning: more comments like this will lead to ban)
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Well I've lurked quite a lot on this forum since I got my first Arduino board, and I've been active at times. I've seen all sort of people (skill-wise) ask questions here, so while I wish you the best luck in finding someone to lecture you, I suggest you just star with your project(s) and ask on the forum as need arises. IME experts here are willing to answer even the simplest questions, provided one shows the will to do his "homework". Just avoid asking for free work, and you'll find a lot of help.
My 2 cents, as always. 
There's also the problem that some people just cannot learn how to program, no matter how good the teacher is, their brain just isn't wired the right way to understand it