The Language Of Code
After today’s symposium, I was thinking about how we learn network literacy. Adrian mentioned that most network literate individuals are completely self-taught. If this is the case, then it’s more important than ever to make sure young people in particular, are interested enough in the internet to teach themselves the language of code.
This evening I ate spaghetti Bolognese with my 14-year-old sister, who has become a very keen blogger over the last six months. I told her I was doing a blog for uni and that I needed help understanding how to install certain widgets. I felt very old having my little sister – almost a generation younger than me – explain this. Nevertheless, her advice was excellent.
After dinner my sister got chatting to me about how she did this, that and the other with her blog, and how when she started out she had nothing but a “white page with a bit of writing on it”. She then proceeded to tell me that in order to custom her blog she had to code certain things. Say what? “Code? When did you learn to code?” I asked. She answered: “Sophie and me sat down for a whole weekend and looked it up on YouTube. We made a big document with all the code on it so we wouldn’t forget”. Well, I have to say that I was suitably impressed.
I think my little sister is quite unique – and not because I love her to pieces – because blogging is not something she was introduced to at school, and it doesn’t seem to be something many of her peers are doing, except Sophie. She taught herself some code so she could communicate her interests in the contemporary media environment, and I feel this will hold her in great stead for the future. She’s lucky that she doesn’t need school to teach her things.
Why don’t they teach blogging at school? It would be a fantastic way to teach kids network literacy, while allowing them to express their interests. Sadly however, I think Adrian was right today when he said that schools are deeply frightened of the internet and its power, which causes them to restrict students’ interaction with it.