Tag: Introduction

  • BrainStation – Day One

    Our Marshmallow Challenge
    Our Marshmallow Challenge – 16 inches high in 18 minutes
    The day started out with everyone picking their own table, but as the room started filling up, all the chairs are full. We went through the typical orientation type stuff, and then a team building exercise with a marshmallow. Our team did pretty well, and though it wasn’t the tallest one, we certainly got in the running and it never wavered. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come!
    We then broke off into our respective programs and had to have our head shots taken, and now, I know that they use those to show on the demo day website. I even saw one of my old students listed on their graduates! We had a catered lunch, and I oddly enough, sat more or less on my own.
    When we came back from lunch, they ran us through more specific orientation for our program, did introductions and showed us some previous projects. Interestingly, I am one of about two people in the entire class (about 30) that has an education in coding of any kind, and he’s a web developer already. There are only 5 women in the Web Development stream, which is lower than what I anticipated, given the number of women that I saw this morning. Don’t get me wrong, there were quite a few engineers, and financial people, so the level of education was high in many cases, but not specifically in technology. Who knew that I might be one of the more technologically advanced people in this class?
    So now, I’m sitting in the beginnings of my first lecture, and the instructor is really engaging, but in my case, I teach the history of the internet, what HTML and CSS are and how they are used, so it is a little basic for me. I promise to try and keep my head down, instead of taking over. By tomorrow, I’ll engage this process whole-heartedly. Today, I’m running on pure adrenaline, especially when I woke up at 6 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I’m going to use this time to catch up on my blogging, as well as complete the prep course, that I’m about 90% done.  It’s only about 3 pm and we still have an event at 6 pm, but we get to work on a lab and then the instructor leads us through his solution. Given this, I think we’ll do just fine.
    After the class was done, we headed over to Wurst, where we were treated to a beverage and some snacks, which was just a nice way to kick off the course. We got to sit with both cohorts, not just the web development. Met with one of the instructors who wants to get some blogging going among the students. So, I showed her my post from yesterday. Apparently, I’m in! Making good progress and need to keep it up. Still learned stuff today, so it wasn’t all stuff I knew already. Tomorrow, I’ll really start digging into stuff that I know on the surface, but not yet in depth. Let the games begin.
    Thanks to everyone that has supported me thus far, and has given me hope in completing this course. Stick around and I’ll tell you how it goes!
    BrainStation Starter Gift
    They even gave us some cool swag! I feel like I’m at a WordCamp again.
  • WordCamp North Canton Video – Introduction to the Dashboard

    They’ve just posted my awesome presentation of the Introduction to the Dashboard talk that I launched my WordCamp Tour 2015 with at WordCamp North Canton. First time I delivered this, and I loved doing it. Would love the feedback!


  • Jetpack Presentation to WordPress Hamilton

    Thanks so much to WordPress Hamilton for having me out last night to present an Introduction to Jetpack. There was a great group and we had some interesting questions and insights. Thanks to everyone who came out. Let’s keep the conversation going!

  • WordPress 102 Session

    I had the pleasure of being a guest on the WPWaterCooler broadcast on Monday, March 23, 2015 where the topic was “Teaching WordPress”. A big thanks to the organizers for having me on the show!

    While most of us agreed on the majority of the content for WordPress 101, the content for a 102 session varied greatly. Some of the instructors got into theme development and others would talk about more of the administrative functions. Some would include the later as part of their “101” sessions, especially if it was a full day course.

    I do a lot of WordPress 101 talks, not full courses and my question for everyone is: What would you like to see in MY WordPress 102 session? I really would appreciate the feedback, especially for those that have seen my WordPress 101 talks at Haltech, WordCamp Chicago (video), WordCamp New York, Women In ITM (WITM) and others.

    Here’s the video from the WPWaterCooler (EP. 128):

     

  • WordPress 101 for Women In Information Technology Management

    Here’s the first part of the presentation that I gave last night to Women in Information Technology Management at Ryerson University. The second half was more of demo that I’m hoping to document a little better and turn into a full course. Thanks to those who attended and supported the event. Awesome time!