Hey, I'm Alexandra White.
Let's build a better digital experience.

Blog posts on Work

August 17, 2017

A lesson in teaching kids to code

A lesson in teaching kids to code

A few weeks ago, I was presented an opportunity to work with kids age 9-16 and teach them “how to build a website,” via Opportunity Music Project. I was told there would be internet access, about five hours of teaching time, and thirty kids in the class. While I always knew that teaching was hard, there’s nothing quite like hands-on experience to prove a thesis.

All in all, it was one of the most challenging and rewarding five hours of my professional career.

There were a number of great moments and missteps along the way. I hope to take these as lessons for future opportunities.

Lesson 1: Set realistic goals

Before class started, I had been asked to help all of the kids leave knowing how to build a website, plus talk about internet safety. Going in, I knew there was no way I could ensure that every kid had the skills to build something right away. But, I knew I could give them a basic understanding of what HTML looked like and the tools to continue to learn when class was over.

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July 28, 2016

Time for New Adventures

Time for New Adventures

Today will be my last day as Web Developer in WNET’s Interactive Engagement Group, just two weeks shy of my two year anniversary. Monday, August 1, will be my first day as Documentation Editor at Joyent.

I had been thinking about my next move for a while – I suppose you could call it the two-year itch, the one that young professionals seem to get early in their careers. For the first time in my life, I was being actively recruited by various organizations looking for front-end developers (or back-end engineers, for which I was not the right fit). Recruitment is a funny thing. It’s nice to start practicing what it will be like when you put yourself out there for new positions, as well as potentially open an opportunity that you may not have come across otherwise.

Joyent came to me through a more old-fashioned method: in-person networking. Instead of a recruitment email, it was me sitting at the hotel bar after the first day of O’Reilly’s Velocity Conference and talking to a potential new friend about ourselves and our goals for the conference. I did a good enough job convincing this gentleman that I believe in the importance of documentation for developers, so much so that it sent me down a path of phone calls and interviews about a role they were just creating for someone just like me.

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August 24, 2015

Build a Better WordPress Theme with the Settings API

This post was originally written and published on the IEG technical blog.

Often when we create our WordPress themes, they come with a small theme options page built using the Settings API. This page could have inputs for everything from social media handles to uploading a new logo or picking a homepage layout. Having these options makes it easier for non-developers to make important changes to their websites, or give it minor refreshment.

Here’s a pretty straightforward example of how we use it on Chasing the Dream. Administrators can update the links for social media icons, enter the unique Google Custom Search Key, pick a homepage grid, and even update the footer text.

themeoptions

Having a theme options page is a good way to set global options, such as a font or accent color. Instead of having to find all of the places within the CSS every time a client wants to try a different shade of blue, instead they can have the power to update it themselves.

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August 03, 2015

Interactive Engagement Group Portfolio and Technical Blog

Interactive Engagement Group Portfolio and Technical Blog

Back in October of 2014, I had a bit of a dry spell at WNET. There weren’t as many new projects coming in, and I was still green to the way our more complex web properties work. Instead of sitting around and reading the various internet news aggregates, I decided to attack a problem I knew about even before starting my job that August.

The Interactive Engagement Group (IEG) website was a flat, two-page piece of brochure ware. It was built to appease the powers-that-be, but was in no way indicative of the type of amazing work that the department was capable of doing. I wanted to take this project head on and lead the way to a beautiful, responsive, and informative website that would not only show off what we could do, but show off the expertise of our team. To do this, I needed buy-in from my boss, head of the technical team, and from the head of our department.

To Get Buy In, I Came Prepared

Though I talked about why I thought it was important with my boss and with the developer team, I knew I would need a lot more than a “good idea” to get department funding to build the site. I put my professional writing skills to work and wrote a content strategy.

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March 30, 2015

Building a Bingo Plugin for WordPress

Two weeks ago I was presented a new challenge: build a bingo card for Antiques Roadshow that randomly populated with icons on refresh and on-command (by a “refresh” button), make those icons clickable, indicate a win if five in a row are selected, and last but not least, allow the user to share if they do indeed win. The bingo card (Edit: as of 2019, this post has been removed) was released today, just in time for tonight’s episode.

This was the perfect opportunity to build a WordPress plugin. If done right, bingo could be played in multiple posts at the same time, instead of just played for a one-off event.

The plugin itself is fairly straightforward. Content administrators add two shortcodes to the post they hope to Bingo-fy. 24+ randomized images should be uploaded to that post (not including the image for the free space, winner images, a bingo header, or anything else). All additional images used should be uploaded to the media library but not attached to the post.

ars-bingo-card

The first shortcode, [bingo_gallery], adds the images to a hidden div within the post. This will allow the shortcode [bingocard] to refer to said images to populate a table, as well as to a set freespace image, winner image, and header image, all of which are set on the Bingo Settings page. The actual order of these shortcodes within the post doesn’t matter.

At the moment, the plugin is built for three posts with Bingo cards but can be scaled up depending on the user’s knowledge of PHP. I hope in version 2.0 I can more easily add up to ten bingo cards in the back-end so that PHP/jQuery knowledge isn’t necessary for those wishing to add more bingo cards.

You can download the Bingo Card Plugin on GitHub.

December 20, 2014

Fusion RiseUp: NASA Builds Community and You Can Too

Fusion RiseUp: NASA Builds Community and You Can Too

Back in November, Jeanne Brooks (fellow member of Tech LadyMafia) reached out to me to ask for me to speak at an upcoming hackathon for Fusion RiseUp. Though I’ve spoken at events before, for the most part it had been through JCC Association and JCC events. I had never been asked to speak as me, as a professional.

To be honest, I was surprised. I couldn’t help but wonder, in the pool of amazing women that we belong to, why would she ask me? Of course, that may have had something to do with a bit of my own confidence issues in the moment, but what came back was a list of reasons as to why I was indeed more than qualified.

As nervous as I was, I said yes. This was not an opportunity that I could miss. And boy, am I glad I did.

Instead of speaking about development or hacking in a traditional sense, I spoke about building community. Back in November 2012, I attended NASA Social Final Journey of Atlantis. As you may (or may not) know, even getting to Orlando was an adventure (thanks Hurricane Sandy). Community building carried on long after the event ended, and there is now a group of individuals that are a part of my extended network with a shared love for all things space.

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