I was introduced to Django when it was released back in around 2005/2006. I watched a video conference called Snakes and Rubies where they talked about Django and Ruby on Rails. I was really impressed with the talk about Django. Adrian made a great talk about the framework.
After the video, I played around with both of the frameworks, but Django quickly became my favorite. I already knew basic Python, so I understood much of the Django code.
I learned the basics and built a couple of small projects. After a few years, I built the biggest project I had done so far. This was a website called "finn en frilanser" which is Norwegian for "find a freelancer". So it was basically a Norwegian version of elance, guru and similar. I learned a lot during this process and it was a really cool project to build.
A few years after this, I built a new really big project using Django. This was a project called "FinnFido". This is kind of an amber alert web application for lost and found pets. I also built an API for the same application which I used for an iPhone and Android app.
So, most of why knowledge has comes from building different projects. Each time I start something new, I try to think of new features I can implement so I can learn even more. For the API I built, I had to learn a lot about JSON and security.
What I think has made me learn most of the Django I know, is actually making videos about the subject. Because when I make videos, I need to explain many different things in my own words. This make it stick better in my head.
When I go through someone elses tutorials, I like to play around with code. I use different variable names and values, change the function names etc. Doing this makes it easier to understand why things are done the way they are.
People learn differently, and the best way for me to learn is "learn by doing" and making it stick better by explaining things in my own words. So this sums up what I have done to learn Django.
This also applies to everything else I know. I learn by doing and becomes even better when I try to teach other about it.
And that's it.