My learning strategy is to transfer from my Blockchain.info wallet .75 cents worth of a Bitcoin to my Armory Online Wallet and then transfer it to my Armory offline PC wallet for cold storage. Then I want to do the reverse and send back the same amount to my Blockchain.info wallet from my Armory offline wallet. Can anyone comment as to whether this learning strategy is the best way to get familiar with the basic operational features within Armory? What is the best testing I can perform to confirm I am correctly transferring my funds to cold storage?
Using a small amount for testing things until you feel safe about them is always a very good idea. That being said, as long as you make sure to create paper backups for both your online and offline wallets, you should be safe. With them you can always recreate your wallets, even on other computers.
Which strategy is best for you to break the learning curve is of course up to you, but what you suggest makes sense to me. Doing transactions from blockchain.info to your online wallet, then to your offline wallet, then back to blockchain.info gives you challenges that slightly increases every time: Receiving coins in Armory (which is the same whether you receive to online or offline wallet), then sending coins from an online wallet in Armory, then sending coins from an offline wallet in Armory.
Personally I did a lot of testing with just online wallets (sending amounts back and forth from Armory and my
mobile phone wallet), just to get used to Armory before setting out to try sending from an offline wallet, which does present a slightly more complicated process (but nothing to be worried about). I also did a lot of testing on the testnet network (which both Armory and my
mobile phone wallet can access) just to make sure I didn't screw up, or waste a lot on transaction fees.
