December 11, 2016 — At Montreal’s first WordCamp, only four women spoke throughout the two-day, two-track event. People noticed. It didn’t feel right. Something had to change. By 2016, we’d had two straight WordCamps with at least 50% women speakers. How did we get from there to here? I’ll look at some of the strategies we used to #changetheratio.

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December 11, 2015 — Do you think you don’t know enough about WordPress to help out someone else? Come with Kathryn Presner on my journey through the techie continuum – swinging through Self-Doubt Boulevard and taking a leisurely jaunt through Imposter Syndrome Alley.

Find out how she finally realized she knew enough to contribute – and how you can too.

September 21, 2015 — Ever wanted to make small changes to the look-and-feel of your site but weren’t sure how to go about it? Itching to change the colour of your site title, tweak the size of your paragraph text, or hide the date on your posts? Let’s go on a CSS adventure together! In this session you’ll learn some basic CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and we’ll look at some practical examples, using a browser inspector to customize our site’s design.

Prerequisites:
Some basic HTML knowledge is helpful, but not required. You should be open to looking “under the hood” at a site’s HTML and CSS.

May 12, 2015 — Child themes are a simple but powerful way to customize a pre-made theme. Learning how to use them properly means you’ll never risk losing all your modifications when the developer releases a new version and you update the theme. Using easy-to-follow language, This talk walks you through the steps to set up a child theme and we’ll get started making some tweaks – from CSS look-and-feel adjustments to more substantial changes in functionality.

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March 8, 2015 — The huge range of over 35,000 community-contributed plugins is one of the most valuable features of WordPress.org. But how do you determine what’s a safe and effective plugin without being overwhelmed by choice? In this session we’ll look at when to use a plugin and clarify the difference between widgets and plugins. We’ll discuss how to make an informed decision about which plugin to use – and explore how to
troubleshoot any conflicts that may crop up.

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November 3, 2014 — Providing support for your themes offers tremendous opportunities to educate people, from explaining how to make a child theme to teaching simple CSS tweaks. It also presents challenges, like writing easy-to-follow setup documentation for a complex theme, or handling requests for help outside official support channels. This session looks at how to support your theme well while making users happy and staying sane – a winning combination in the world of theme development.

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March 28, 2014 — Visual Editor stopped working? Plugin update gone awry? Getting useful help when you’re stuck on a WordPress problem is not always as straightforward as it seems. This session is packed with tips on how to ask for assistance in the WordPress support forums and other arenas – in a way that will let others help you more easily and effectively. It covers some handy techniques for basic troubleshooting on your own – before contacting tech support.

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July 29, 2013 — While building a site for a fictitious event, learn how to add variety by using plugins to easily create columns, display information in tabs, add social media buttons, generate contact forms, and lots more – all without manually coding anything!

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December 8, 2012 — The huge range of community-contributed plugins is one of the most valuable features of WordPress.org. But how do you determine what’s a safe and effective plugin without being overwhelmed by choice? Learn how to make an informed decision about which plugin to use – and how to troubleshoot any conflicts that may crop up.

Presentation Slides »

November 8, 2012 — Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/zoonini/beginnea-beginners-guide-to-wordpress-wordcamp-toronto-2012rs-word-press-wcto-2012