Speaking
I have had the pleasure to speak and teach at a number of conferences, meetups, and classrooms. I love speaking to both present and future developers about a variety of front-end development topics. A list of both my upcoming and previous speaking dates and presentations are below.
Questions? Comments? Want to chat? Let me know!
Presto Chango: The magic of block transforms
WordPress block transforms provide content editors with an easy way to migrate content from one block to another. The core editor already includes many transforms from one core block to another. Turn a paragraph block into a heading. Turn an image block into a cover.
But, did you know that you can up your post editor game by writing your own transforms? Turn a core block into your own custom block! Give your content editors the ability to easily switch between two blocks and create custom shortcuts that will automatically populate a custom block.
- HighEdWeb 2022
- October 4, 2022
- Online
- Session Details
Gutenberg Developer Hours
This new meetup series from the WordPress Social Learning Meetup invites attendees to ask a panel of WordPress developers about the block, plugins, theme development, or any other WordPress editor topic. I am very excited to have been asked to be a part of the panels for 2 of the 4 inaugural sessions.
- March 22, 2022
- Meetup
- February 22, 2022
- Meetup
- Watch Recording
Dynamic Blocks FTW!: Customize Gutenberg Without Living in Fear of Validation Errors
Picture this: You write a brand new custom Gutenberg block. Sometime later, you realize that you need to change your block’s markup to either fix a bug or add a new feature. Suddenly, the editor crashes your block. Validation error! You can fix this with a deprecation object. Or… could there be a better way?
Enter the dynamic block. In this workshop, you will learn about the difference between dynamic and static blocks, how block validation works, and how to write a dynamic block. You will never have to write a deprecation again!
- HighEdWeb 2021
- October 4-5, 2021
- Online
- Dynamic Blocks FTW
- Session Details
- WPCampus Online 2021
- September 21-22, 2021
- Online
- Dynamic Blocks FTW
- Watch Video
See What I Mean?: Data Visualization in WordPress
Data visualizations are graphical representations of large and small datasets. Usually, they are charts or graphs that make patterns in these datasets easier to understand. This developer-focused talk demonstrates how to use Google Sheets and SVGs to create a custom Gutenberg block that will display data in a responsive and accessible way.
- WPCampus Online 2020
- July 29-30, 2020
- Online
- Data Visualization in WP
- Watch Video
- Javascript for WordPress Conference 2020
- July 8-10, 2020
- Online
- Data Visualization in WP
Customizing Gutenberg: Lessons Learned at Georgetown
The new Gutenberg editor comes with so many great content blocks. However, what if your editors have special use cases for their content that cannot be easily created with Gutenberg’s out-of-the-box blocks? At Georgetown, we have created a series of custom Gutenberg blocks in an effort to address our editors’ unique content needs.
- WPCampus Online 2019
- January 31, 2019
- Online
- Customizing Gutenberg
- Watch Video
Accessible Web Development
We develop websites for everyone to use, so why not make sure that everyone is able to use our sites? We as developers need to plan for accessibility before we write our first line of code.
- edUi
- September 25-27, 2017
- Charlottesville, VA
- Accessible Development
- ConvergeSE
- June 14-16, 2017
- Columbia, SC
- Accessible Development
- NoVA CodeCamp
- April 1, 2017
- Washington, DC
- Accessible Development
Accessible Development Class
In addition to my Accessible Development conference talk, I have also lead a class for fellow Georgetown staff members about how to develop web sites in an accessible manner.
- Georgetown University
- Online (internal course)
- Slide Deck
Front-End Development Courses
I have also taught front-end web development courses, primarily to students with no programming experience. These are 100% beginner courses.
- Introduction to JavaScript workshop
- September 2016
- General Assembly DC
- Introduction to SVG
- November 2015
- Northern Virginia CC
- See Notes
- Design Tools Mini-Course
- May 2016
- General Assembly DC
- Slide Deck
- Front-End Web Development 10-week classes
- 2015-2016
- General Assembly DC