Promoting code literacy

When you think about it... it’s actually a little scary to think how many websites and services are out there, but how few people know how they run or the code behind these systems. Every one of us have no doubt used Facebook, Google Maps, web-based email and other online platforms... and my guess is you haven’t even thought about what goes into building a service like this?

Program or Be Programmed author, CNN columnist and Frontline documentary director Douglas Rushkoff has thought about this also, and that’s why he’s taken a job at Code Academy as their chief ‘code literacy evangelist’.

I’ve recently been going through some courses at Code Academy and love the way they do things over there, so it will be interesting to see how the addition of Douglas enhances the company.

Here’s what he has to say about code literacy:-

It took a few centuries after the invention of text for regular people to learn how to read and write. The printing press, which democratized print by reducing the cost of manuscripts, certainly helped. Now that we live in a world with newspapers, road signs, package labels and drug inserts, almost no one still questions the idea that teaching kids to read is a good thing, or that basic literacy makes us more likely to create value for ourselves or our employers.

Well, we now live in a world with apps, networks, and stock market trading algorithms that we use, even though desperately few of us understand how they work. And while learning to code may have once been an arduous or expensive process, the college dropouts who developed Codecademy have democratized coding as surely as Gutenberg democratized text. Anyone can go to Codecademy and start learning and creating code through their simple, fun, interactive window, for free.

If you’re interested in learning a little more about coding, I highly suggest taking a look at http://www.codecademy.com/