Firstly- Any aspiring photographer must learn to take good care of there camera, be it a DSLR or a digicam. Humidity, dust are things to keep your gadget protected from.

The technical aspects one starts with would be basic.
Controlling shutter speed (ranging from long exposure shots to fast action sport shots), aperture (and how it affects depth of field), focusing (and choosing the object to focus) are things where one can begin.
Understanding ISO, learning to use flash effectively when required follow.
These are the aspects that are learned with a camera.

There is also the very important matter of framing your photograph that can be learned without a camera.
After all a photographer is much more than his gadget.
That needs a aesthetic sense that can be built with time (for example diagonal elements have a pleasing effect).
Some things to keep in mind is the ‘rule of thirds’, contrast, having an intuition of when Black and white would look better. One should also think of what they want to portray in a photograph. Does it have a deeper meaning.

Of course as one’s gadget becomes more sophisticated a lot more technical options are available and must be understood by reading the manual carefully and must with time be mastered..