So there we were (myself and Linda Sandvik) sitting around drinking a rather lovely glass of wine and  planning our dream open data eduction themed hack day when BOOM. ” We should teach kids to code”. Now this is by no means an original thought but most sane people take that thought and put it safely in the ‘To do later, like when I’m 60 or something’ folder in their minds. Unfortunately we couldn’t do that. The thought did not go away.

After weeks of planning we launched Code Club on 16th April. Code Club is a nationwide network of volunteer-led after-school coding clubs for children aged 10-11. You can read more about here at www.codeclub.org.uk We have 1150 volunteers so far which is 6.8% of the 16,791 primary schools in England. We aim to have Code CLub in 25% of primary schools by the end of 2014 so we still some way to go! Spread the word far and wide! Follow us on Twitter @CodeClub and tell everyone you know.

At the end of March I went to Brighton for Seb Lee-Delisle’s course ‘Creative JS for Non-coders’. It was a brilliant introduction to JavaScript because we were drawing onto the canvas and could see how our code effected the visuals we were making instantly using  JS Bin. Seb is a great teacher with lots of patience and a good sense of humour both of which are essential for a room full of noobs. Here are some pretty pictures of stuff we made below and check out some moving particle madness here. Check out the cute video Seb made too.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think healthy debate is great and essential to sharing ideas and provoking new thoughts. Recently however, I’ve noticed a worrying trend emerging when these debates are played out over Twitter. 

Being limited to 140 characters means the message is inherently short and a light tone of voice is easily lost. This can lead to @replies sounding brusque and rude even when that wasn’t the initial intention. I’ve seen debates quickly become confused, heated, personal and end in both parties trying to explain where the other misunderstood them. I’ve also seen people get frustrated and soon what had started as an innocent debate becomes tantamount to public humiliation. 

I’ve cringed with embarrassment at my Twitter feed to see people try to belittle each other and have the last word. Now, your followers won’t want to unfollow you if most of the time your tweets are insightful, entertaining or link to great content but they’ll lose respect for you very quickly if you show your dark side too often.

After reading Jon Tan’s article ‘We, who are web designers’ the other day I felt really proud to be part of such a self-nourishing industry and Twitter is a great way to feel connected to the industry as a whole organism. I like to think of the people I follow as being a big group of friends who want to help and encourage each other - but friends don’t humiliate each other in public.

So I propose that if your conversation is getting even a little heated, confusing or long, that you take it somewhere more private. Try an Twitter app like Privately (group direct messaging) Skype, email or even call them if you know them well enough. Then, if you think it’s worth sharing you can blog about it later when you’ve had time to digest it.

But all is not lost. If you think you might be guilty of any of these misdemeanours then you can redeem yourself by following this handy checklist.

Handy Checklist:

However many followers you have, remember that what you say on Twitter is public.

Consider your wording very carefully - if you can’t say it nicely then don’t say it at all (as I’m sure your mother told you).

If someone has been rude to you then be the bigger person and just ignore them.

If your conversation goes beyond 3 @replies take it somewhere private.

Don’t be a jerk, play nice.

Wow. Ok, I think I’ve finally recovered from volunteering at Update Conference. And what a conference it was. How many have you been to that open with a song? I became involved with Update just a couple of months before the event itself when I helped out with some of the design elements. I volunteered on the day too and had such a great day. Team Update were an amazing bunch of people who worked so well together and made sure the day ran smoothly. The high energy schedule included speakers, panels and digital music acts. My particular highlights included Seb Lee-Delisle live coding with Corona, Anna Debenham lifting the lid on the poor state of tech education and the ‘web vs native apps’ panel discussion. Do check out the mix that was splayed during the breaks mixed by Missiljestrom. 

My view of The Geek Ninja Battle from the back.

Back in June, I was really chuffed to be asked by Computer Arts magazine to share some of my favourite fonts. The Big Question this month was ‘If you could only design with one font family what would it be?’