Abstract:

Much has been made in literature on coding education about the need to focus training on digital creators rather than digital consumers. A digital creator is understood as an individual who can design, innovate and problem-solve through digital technologies, while a digital consumer is limited to using pre-developed tools and applications. The focus, we are told, should be on training digital creators because creators are more likely to contribute to business development and economic growth. Training digital consumers is merely procedural learning with the focus on technical accuracy and memorisation rather than learners’ capacity to design digital products or solve complex problems. In this paper, we challenge this idea. We argue that in the South African context, to focus education on digital creators is impractical given the limited resources, including qualified coding teachers, and it also skips over the more important task of training digital consumers. Moreover, we argue that an education for digital consumption is no less dependent on a curriculum emphasising active learning, integration and creativity.

Keywords:

Coding, digital consumers, digital creators.