National Coding Week: FutureLearn to host beginners coding class for adults
London, UK: 06 September 2017: FutureLearn, the leading social learning platform, has teamed up with National Coding Week to run an evening coding class for adults at FutureLearn’s Camden offices on Monday evening, 18th September.
Laura Kirsop, Senior Product Manager, FutureLearn says, “With a recognised coding skills shortage in the UK, we’re delighted to support National Coding Week’s aim to give adults the opportunity to learn some digital skills. With FutureLearn being an online business, we have a big focus on our product which means we have some fantastic talent within our product teams – great developers, designers and product managers. Some of our coders have their own interesting stories about how they’ve got into coding, many are self-taught, and some now run their own coding clubs, so we jumped at the chance to be involved with National Coding Week.”
Our evening class is aimed at adults who are complete beginners to coding; no experience is required and jargon will be kept to a minimum. With an emphasis on giving adults practical coding experience, the session will be focused on getting attendees to code right there and then with the goal being to produce their own webpage by the end of the two hour session.
Those attending should expect a highly interactive session with group and individual work, as well as plenty of coding pros on hand for advice and help on following all steps throughout the two hour session. First, attendees will get to see the code behind their favourite websites and understand how that code can be manipulated. Then they will be introduced to CodePen, shown how to fork a project, and then on to creating their own webpage using HTML and CSS.
Richard Rolfe, Founder of National Coding Week said, “It’s really important for businesses to support digital skill development within their local communities by tapping into talented people within their own organisations who have a genuine interest in helping adults to develop new skills.”
Attendees will be asked to arrive from 6pm for a prompt start at 6.30pm and the session should finish by 8.30pm. Attendees will need to bring their own laptops to the session and will be given instructions via email prior to the evening regarding signing up to a few things in advance to make the most of the time on the night.
Places are free but limited to 40 attendees and allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. For those interested, please sign up here where you can also see more details and the exact location of our offices.
For anyone who can’t attend this physical class, FutureLearn offers a range of online courses in the tech and coding space from beginner to advanced levels.
Your team for the day includes:
Laura Kirsop is a Senior Product Manager. At FutureLearn she ensures our partners are supported through valuable, usable and scalable products. Prior to being at FutureLearn she ran a charity that taught children aged 9-11 to code and was a STEM specialist primary teacher.
Steve Brewer is a self-taught Software Engineer on the online degrees team at FutureLearn and organiser of West London Coders, a monthly meetup for people interested in learning to code.
Vicky Gray is a Software Engineer in the online degrees team at FutureLearn and also an instructor with Code First: Girls, a social enterprise that aims to help more women build careers in tech and entrepreneurship.
Matt Bee is a self-taught Software Engineer at FutureLearn. Has run many Code Clubs, is a regular tech event speaker, does triathlon and (most rewardingly) is a dad of two.
Jessica Rose is a self-taught technologist with a passion for helping people get into the tech industry. She’s founded the Open Code meetup series, co-founded Trans*Code and is helping developers learn as a Technical Manager at FutureLearn.
Notes to Editors
For further press information, please contact:
Niamh O’Grady or Rachel MacPherson, FutureLearn, comms@futurelearn.com
About FutureLearn
Founded by The Open University in 2012, FutureLearn is a leading social learning platform, enabling online learning through conversation. With over 6.5 million people from over 200 countries across the globe – a community that is continuously growing – it offers free and paid for online courses from world-leading UK and international universities, as well as organisations such as the European Space Agency, the British Council and Cancer Research UK. FutureLearn’s course portfolio covers a wealth of areas to promote lifelong learning for a range of applications including general interest, an introduction to university studies, continuing professional development and fully online postgraduate degrees.
