Brentwood EdTech

Even more alarmingly, the technical complexity of programming means that many programmers are so absorbed in solving technical problems that they overlook the human and social consequences of what they are producing

software development has high failure rates to show it.

how political and economic ambitions around learning to code rest on glossy representations that bear little resemblance with the reality of instability, dysfunction and failure in the software landscape, or with the ideologies underpinning its practices.

about the democratizing potential of programming and arguments advocating learning to code that are based on ideas about learning to produce and not just consume technologies.

it’s important to be a little cautious of the claims around “democratisation,” “co-production,” “presumption,” and so on, that accompany these kinds of arguments.

He argues that the software algorithms running in social media are a new source of social power, or “algorithmic power,” that is increasingly altering the actual functioning of culture in everyday settings.

commercial sponsorship of learning to code initiatives and activities by many of today’s most powerful social media and computing companies is evidence of this entanglement of media engagement and corporate power in an increasingly algorithmic culture.

be studied and researched carefully in order to get past the hype.

Looking at learning to code in terms of power serves as a reminder that while programming may be an empowering activity, it is also shaped by wider issues of power in educational technology, the political and economic power that shapes programming, and the algorithmic power shaping cultural participation with digital media.