And this, Lottie, is the Internet
Year Of Code Director Lottie Dexter, talking on Newsnight. (Skip to 5:30. I was going to add my own commentary, but to be honest what Lottie said is funnier without it.)
I’m going to put my cards on the table. I can’t code. I’ve committed this year to learn to code. You can do very little in a short space of time.
For example you can actually build a website in an hour. So you can learn very quickly, completely from scratch. So over this year I’m going to see what I can achieve. So who knows, I might be the next Zuckerberg in twelve months time.
Well I think you can pick it up in a day. I think that if we start teachers thinking about it now, you know, in March we’re taking coding into the classroom for the first time and we’re encouraging all teachers to teach an hour of code to their pupils and if we start thinking about it now, I think that in time for September when this goes onto the schools curriculum they should feel confident and pupils should feel really excited about learning code.
I think that in the modern day economy, code is really a vital skill. I mean, technology has completely changed our economy, our labour market, our society.
Unless we understand technology we don’t really understand how the world works. So, when I was at school, I was taught so much about the human body and in physics I was taught how to wire up a lightbulb. I don’t need to know how to do that but it’s very important to understand how it works to get by on a day-to-day basis.
Knowing how to code is crucial for so many people, to getting jobs in the new economy and we need a workforce for the new economy, but also to increase your earnings potential and indeed to start your own business.
I think that code is an international language. I think that if you can learn to code you can, you know, you can interact across boundaries and I think the important thing is that you can get yourself started. It’s a great leveller. So having code in schools, by giving every pupil the ability to code, they can, you know, start their own businesses. It’s not something that’s marginalised for middle-class parents with access to digital skills. I can be whatever you want it to be.
The tools on the internet are so cheap and they‘re so easily available now that you can set up your own online profiles, start a website. I started a campaign last year and if I had learned code at school I could’ve done my own website, I could’ve done my own app, I could’ve done my own graphics. I would’ve saved a helluva lot of time, a helluva lot of money and I think I could‘ve done it a lot better.
Code is the language you use to instruct computers. I think that is the best way of describing it. So it’s how you make computers do things.
It doesn’t mean anything to you, or indeed to me yet because I don’t know how to code, but it’s the set of instructions that you type into a computer to get an output. So for example, when this goes onto the schools’ curriculum, every pupil from the age of five will learn how to code and they will pop in a set of instructions into a box and they will create an e-card and they will see that what you put in is what you get out. It is how you make computers do things.
What’s an e-card? It is a virtual birthday card or a virtual Valentines Day card. Maybe you could make one? And websites. And apps. These are all ways of learning a very important skill that you really need. It‘s the future. You really need it for the twenty-first century jobs market. So three ‘R’s and a “C.’