here's a good suggestion.....if you want to get better at digital photography, get an old 35mm film camera. not something with autofocus I mean something 30+ years old, like a Nikkormat FTN. Excellent learner camera, you learn all the basics plus the camera itself is nuclear bomb-proof. Anyone who has ever shot one can attest to the build quality (and the fact it weighs as much as a dump truck)
A full manual film camera will teach you the basics of real photography, no auto-focus or auto-aperture crap. I picked up two full manual Nikon 35mm cameras to learn the basics and actually embraced the format now I have 3 of them, my 3rd is an autofocus Minolta Maxxum 4. I plan on learning the basics of the darkroom soon as well (also no one locally processes FujiFilm ACROS b+w) I love the format so much I actually bought an adapter for my Digital Rebel so I can use some of my manual 35mm lenses. Vivitar 55mm-135mm f3.5 and Nikon Series E 50mm f1.8 ftmfw.
My image quality and overall satisfaction with my work post-35mm compared to pre-35mm is leaps and bounds ahead of what I used to shoot.
to fully understand and appreciate modern digital photography you must learn vintage techniques and formats. I guarantee the second you pick up a full manual 35mm your hobby / career / addiction / whatever will be changed forever.
You do realize, that instead of spending the money on a film camera and film, that the OP could put their camera on manual mode and turn AF off on the lenses.
Plus, the ability to have exif data in the images vs. having to write down your settings for each photo in a journal of some sort and keeping track of it with your images is invaluable.
Oh...and then there's the old no matter how a person's images turn out on film, if they go back to an entry level body with a kit lens, they're going to go back to the same image qaulity they started with point of view...