Excited to share the episode I recorded in November with Women Who Code MTY and Pam Rodriguez is now out! “Maren tells us about how she introduced herself to the technology industry and how she is now a constant activist to help everyone access the area regardless of level, gender, age or race.” You can…
Published Pieces
I appreciate the opportunity to write and speak about creative coding with kids, WordPress, and freelancing. Original posts, as well as links to my guest posts on other blogs, are below.
Digital Citizenship, Online Privacy, and Fact Checking
Digital Citizenship and Online Privacy As I teach students to code, one thing I stress is good digital citizenship and online privacy. For instance, as I teach elementary students about using Scratch, I point out that having a Scratch account* enables them to save and share their own projects, create studios, and leave comments on…
Want to Start Coding? Ideas to Get You Going.
Learning to code is really a vehicle to teach computational thinking skills. It can help you learn to problem solve, understand how to work through frustration, experience collaborating and communicating with others, and practice breaking processes down into smaller, manageable steps. Important life skills! There are a number of great free places to start playing with code so you can find the language(s) you enjoy….
Learning by Teaching Others
I’ve had the great privilege the last few weeks of getting into the classroom with kids. Even if you have been playing with code for years, there is always something new to learn. And my own journey (teaching adults and now kids about coding) has shown me that I may be “the teacher” but I, too, walk away from sessions having learned something new….
WordPress for Me, Scratch for My Family: Finding Our Open Source Playspace
WordPress powers 32% of the web and is famous for being free, open source software that users without any coding experience, as well as professional developers, can leverage to create amazing websites for themselves or their clients. It has a huge passionate community supporting it, and it is extendable and totally customizable, so your imagination is the limit. When I was preparing to teach my kids to code, I found a similar community feeling, open source energy, and creative explosion in Scratch! Here is why I love WordPress and Scratch, and why you should give Scratch a look if you have kids….
All About that Space: How and Where to Apply Margins and Padding
You’ve got a design comp, you’re measuring the space around elements, and then you need to code that space. Do you use margin? Padding? Both? And what element, or elements, do you apply it to?! Let’s talk about space and your coded design….