Building Themes for WordPress

This two-day course runs on Saturday, March 28th and Sunday, March 29th from 10:00am to 2:30pm. Lunch will be provided 
Make your WordPress site shine! This class is for intermediate WordPress users with a HTML/CSS skill set who want to learn how to build custom themes for WordPress. This class is perfect for bloggers who want to customize their blogs, freelancers (or potential freelancers) who want to learn more about WordPress, and new developers who want to learn how content management systems work.
We'll cover the following:
Day 1 - Intro to Wordpress themes, Child Themes, Starter Themes and Theme Templates: You'll leave with an understanding of how WordPress themes work, how to find and install them, how to safely modify them and how to create theme templates.
Day 2 - Building Theme Functionality: You'll learn how to build theme functionality such as: widgetized areas, custom widgets, menu areas and custom post types. There will be project time at the end of day 2 to work on themes and answer specific questions.
Prerequisites:
• Familiarity with WordPress. You should be familiar with making and editing posts, creating pages, and using the administrative dashboard.
• Strong familiarity with HTML/CSS (PHP a plus, but not required) 
• Ability to use a text editor to edit code 
Please come to class with: 
• A laptop
• A locally or remotely hosted sandbox WordPress site to play around with. You can install WordPress on your own computer or a use a remotely-hosted installation on your own hosting plan with a company like A Small Orange or DreamHost. A Wordpress.com account will not work.
• Your favorite text editor 
• Graphics editing software (optional) 
Scholarships:
We will offer two scholarships to this course. Apply here:
http://goo.gl/forms/PVvGjFrMgk
Your Teacher: Ruby Sinreich

Ruby Sinreich is a web developer who specializes in strategies that connect people to each other, sometimes known as “network-centric advocacy,” “social media,” “Web 2.0,” or “grassroots organizing.” Her favorite tools for weaving communities are Drupal, WordPress, and unconferences. She has been helping others use the Internet since teaching workshops on e-mail (no kidding) and HTML in the 1990's, and is thrilled to continue the tradition with Girl Develop It!
Refund policy: Your payment of $80 guarantees your seat in the entire course. Please note that we cannot issue refunds because there is an overhead to issuing refunds via Meetup.com and we already offer the workshops at such a low cost. We put proceeds into the chapter fund, which we use as our scholarship fund.
Other Disclaimers: Our program and curriculum are geared toward adults over the age of 18; at this time we do not accept minors as students in our courses and workshops.
If you have any questions prior to registering, please contact us at [masked]