Once you have learnt the basics of a few languages, your time will be best spent doing projects to further your knowledge.
Basically come up with a simple idea, doesn't have to be anything new or revolutionary, for instance a common project is making calculators, I know I have had to make 2 different ones during my college education so far. Anything like that will work though, make some websites, make a phone app, or a simple game.
These projects will also help you choose the field in computer science that you are interested in, as you can try ideas from any branch you are interested in.
As for the IDE discussion, I recommend you try out eclipse, its free and has a vast amount of plugins to assist you in trying different things.