 Good morning everybody. Good morning. My name is Anjanette Washington. I'm a proud educator in Broward County Schools for the past 25 years. I'm a WordPress user and most importantly I am so excited to host the third annual kids panel. So give yourselves a hand for being here. Thank you so much. We have six amazing young people. The youngest is 10 years old and the oldest is 16 years old and so we're excited because these young people are the future of WordPress. Yesterday at our closing session we met the founder of WordPress and he was expressing some of his goals in the future what he's looking to see WordPress do but the future is now and so today we want to introduce our kids panel and I'm going to go around and start with Ms. Victoria Danious. If you would please give her a warm welcome. Secondly Ms. Alyssa Harris. Give her a welcome. Her sister Alayna Harris. Mr. Edward Pratt and I'm real excited about this next young man Mr. Aiden Lucayo and last but definitely not least Ms. Jada Washington Booth. So now we're going to talk about what is the future of WordPress and these young people. So first I'm going to start with Victoria. How did you get involved with WordPress? So just go ahead and talk. Okay. Next how did you get introduced? Yes. Can't hear? Okay. Okay. No problem. Hello. Okay. Perfect. Victoria if you could start over. So our coaches teach us how to code from scratch and they wanted to teach us something different more modern so we use WordPress. I'm basically the same story. Last year it was about last year in our sophomore year that we were introduced to WordPress through a competition that we were having so that's how we did it. We're all in the same club so this might sound repetitive but we started last year because we were originally only coding from scratch with HTML and CSS and we wanted to do something more challenging. My coding journey began in ninth grade. I started with animation and I went to programming Jones and programming them how to take coordinates to look and take pictures of certain maps but I got into WordPress. My tenth grade year when I joined my Oracle Club and through there I was using it to make blogs. I changed some of the templates, hacked it myself, did some special things when I changed the colors, the templates of it and that's basically how I joined. That's basically how I started on WordPress. Well WordPress is a relatively new thing for me. When my robotics teacher and Ms. Washington introduced me to it as a recommendation for a higher level coding I used it and now I really enjoy it. I started doing WordPress by my friend. They introduced me and my mom. Let's give them a hand. Thank you so much. As a mom and most importantly at first as a mom and as an educator I think it's important that word camp. You're bringing your children, you're bringing your students to this environment where they can learn what are the trends in technology and so with that said, Victoria, who was the biggest influencer in your life to get you involved with technology, with coding and with WordPress? Ms. Perciti I believe she's in the back somewhere. She is the one that really introduced me to the technology world in the overall because I am an immigrant to the United States and I came in 2013. I didn't know so much on coding but then I met Ms. Perciti through her sister and since then she's been kind of my mentor. She teaches me how to code, how to present and everything. So I'm very thankful to her. Excellent. My introduction to the technological world started in seventh grade. I wasn't really interested in it at first but it was a good program that my mom suggested since technology is constantly evolving and so since seventh grade I've been doing coding and then in about ninth grade beginning at tenth grade is when I got introduced to the Oracle program and that's when we really started to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript and then last year we started on WordPress with various competitions that we held in our school. And while you're on that subject how did you do in those competitions? We did. Victoria you won most of them? Yeah. With WordPress? Wow. She lost a lot of them. Oh okay but still she won. That's outstanding. So the team won a lot of their competitions because of WordPress. Isn't that interesting? Yes, go ahead. For the record I won the last one. No friendly competition here. Okay, like Alyssa said our mom suggested the program through Oracle. Our mom suggested the program. It was on Saturdays so most of us were not initially initially interested in it but they had good food so we all stayed. And then from there on our passion for coding grew. I was introduced into coding my ninth grade year. I just stumbled upon it because I heard of a group called Tugan my school and I just joined it. I was like okay this is fun then and through that I was introduced into Oracle which rest I read the rest of my friends. Well these two at least. But so yes well yes we entered various competitions as well. I won one and I got the internship for one but anyway that's how I got introduced into coding. I would say my robotics teacher Mrs. Fijekowski I've been doing robotics and coding programs with her since last year and well she is popcorn. Robotics and popcorn are the best mix ever. I was introduced into coding by YouTube and I was wondering what Scratch was and then I just started coding from it and now I am starting to do JavaScript and I already started doing Python. So as you can see regardless of what age your child is WordPress Python JavaScript all of these coding programs your child is never too young to begin learning about it and as educators you can introduce your students to what these young people are doing. Again let's give them a hand. Excellent job. Thank you. So going back to Victoria my next question. Give us some of the competition experiences or in class in school experiences that you have had using WordPress over the last it seems like couple of years last five years. I was working for someone very recently it's JJC Consulting Group. I won a competition and I had the chance to work with them and create a website for them. It was challenging at first because I did create something but at the end of the day WordPress gives you the template and if you don't try you can either try to change it and make it your own but still using the template but you can do it as the client asks for. It was kind of challenging to me because I have my own kind of style. I like bright stuff and things like that but my client they wanted something business. A business template. Yes they wanted a business website and thankfully to my coaches they helped me. Excellent. Tell us about your experiences in the classroom personal with using WordPress whether it's competition or just for learning more about the program. So this past summer recently with the Saturday program Oracle we all competed to for internships in the downtown Fort Lauderdale area and to which that there was an event with a showcase and with the showcase many of us actually designed WordPress sites to house our portfolios and our resumes. So with WordPress what I really like about it although it does provide templates it allows you to input your own HTML and CSS code so that you can customize it any which way that you like and that really helped to show our own style to these business people in the downtown Fort Lauderdale area and I believe all four of us were to get internships that summer. Same question. What have you how have you used WordPress in your classroom personal experience school how have you used it. We were given accounts on WordPress originally for the very first competition that we did and during that competition none of us really knew how to use WordPress so it was more of a learning experience and so throughout the next couple of years or months they gave us multiple WordPress accounts and so we all went in there and we customized the templates then even though the templates are there they encourage us not to use the template in their original form. So what we mainly do with WordPress is we customize the templates. There is a feature in WordPress and it tells you don't go any further when you go and customize CSS but we always go further. It's like a big warning sign and it tells you not to do it but we do it anyway. So that's that's the main thing I get. And what was the result of you pushing yourself. I have multiple WordPress websites and my portfolio is really up to Okay. Edward. For me from my personal experience WordPress has been quite fun and it's very exciting for me because I like the challenges I like going further and further in it and of course I've broke the system several times and we had to get a new one for me so it was just very exciting. I really like customizing it myself. I like putting my own finish and touches on each template and each one I do I finish and it feels like a own child of mine because I did this and I put in the hard work and time and effort and to getting it to look as it is right now. So I'm very proud of myself for doing that and I really like WordPress. It's quite fun. Okay. Now Aiden and Jada have different experiences because they're at the elementary. The four previous students use WordPress. They're building their portfolios. They've started in middle school and transferred their skills into the high school but Aiden talk about your experiences with coding at the elementary level because that's where the groundwork begins parents and educators. If you don't have that background you cannot move into the levels that these four. So talk about that Aiden. Well I've been in my school's robotics program since first grade. I've been to many competitions. Now I'm in a Sekmi program which is more hands-on program. But in my robotics we had to do a lot of coding. So we had to learn the basics like the drag and drop scratch. Very a little bit of Python and then in second grade I joined the computer programming class which taught us the more advanced programs. But they're all very good basis and when I get into middle and high school I plan on extending those like learning more about coding. Excellent Aiden. And last but not least Jada again you've been coding for a while. Talk about what you've been using with coding to do both wordpress and non-wordpress. Well I've been able to make a couple of websites and two apps by coding and wordpress. You want to talk about the website and the app or. Well one of my websites was Draw Amazing Kids. It was talking about how to empower kids to get more active. But I'm still going to still be working on that. And my other app is called PandaPad but I need to update it more. Okay. So as you can see it doesn't matter the age. All it matters is that you're getting your child or your children exposed to what's out there in technology. What's there with wordpress. And so this is the future of wordpress. And so with that what do you see Victoria as the future of wordpress. Where do you see it going for young people and adults in the next five to ten years. Where do you see wordpress going. Wordpress if someone really if someone doesn't know much about coding they may think it's just drag and drop and then just taking a theme or a template. But really you can push yourself really forward where it's like they said there's a button and they really ask you if you want to go further because if you do you may mess up the whole theme or the whole template. And this is one thing that I like about wordpress. Other stuff doesn't allow you to go in the back end and to change stuff. But wordpress just gives you the liberty to do all that. Okay. You can be a good coder and still use wordpress. So yeah. Alyssa so where do you see the future of wordpress and coding and what Victoria talked about. And by the way can you talk about where your family is from as well. Because I think that also might have an influence on that. Talk about your background. So like Victoria and really all four of us were all immigrants from the Caribbean. And coming here we really our parents really wanted to focus on all the opportunities that we could get here which is how most of us got introduced into coding. As for wordpress I do see it blowing up in the future because it when you first sign up it does have a tutorial of how to go through it. They also have various plugins that you can use to cut really customize your website. So no website is like the next one. And it's very efficient for new and upcoming entrepreneurs and business owners if they really want to put themselves out there or have a name for themselves. Elena same with you. Where do you see the future of wordpress. I think wordpress will definitely get bigger because I feel like it has something for coders of all skill levels. Like she says there are templates already installed in websites I mean in wordpress. So someone who may not know a lot about coding could just use a template while someone who's very advanced in coding can actually modify the template. So I feel like there's something in wordpress for everyone. So I think it will get bigger. Edward what about you. I also think that wordpress will become better bigger because it's very easy to use very efficient especially for those who don't have any idea of coding is. It's very easy to get an online present through wordpress. And for people who are interested in coding it is very easy to use. And you could just reset your templates every time you mess up on it. So it's very I think that it will be very good and it will be continue to get bigger because it's very easy to use and people will grow intent. People will tend to go towards that. Aiden so from the elementary perspective now getting ready for middle school where do you see yourself and see your fellow classmates using wordpress going from elementary to middle. I think we will be using wordpress a lot. It's a very basic website to understand and since I'm very new to wordpress I got the hang of it very quickly. And as technology grows more more people will start using online businesses and they'll need more websites. So wordpress will help people create those websites to make more successful businesses. It will definitely become more popular as technology gets better. Jada you've been using wordpress for about a year and a half two years. So where do you see your fellow fourth graders soon to be fifth graders using wordpress and coding. Well I think they'll be using wordpress like to make their own businesses and to help them like well one of my friends wants to sell some things like doughnuts. So I think he'll be using it for that. And like you could help your business grow even more like Aiden said. Excellent. And so as we get ready to wrap up our kids panel first of all I would like to thank again the WordCamp Miami 2018. This is the 10th year of WordCamp in Miami. So give yourselves a hand for coming. Personally I would like to thank Mr. David Bissett and his entire staff for inviting myself and the panelists that are here from Lauderdale 6 through 12 High School Manatee Bay Elementary Broward County Schools. Dr. Lisa Malenkovic for the Coding Department Day County Public Schools for collaborating with WordCamp Miami 2018 for giving these students an opportunity to share their experiences with WordCamp Miami 2018. So again we would like to thank all of those and again to Mr. Bissett and his entire staff for WordCamp and particularly the kids camp because it's important that these young people share their experiences. The kids camp panels are to give knowledge from a youth perspective. The young people have a lot as you hear they're doing it. We have the training opportunities that were yesterday and of course today there's going to be more of that. So if you're not involved with the kids camp make sure that make it a plan for your future to be at WordCamp Miami 2018 and of course 2019 when we have more things in store. So with that said Victoria who would you like to thank personally just for these experiences. Talk about who you like to thank. Ms. Brasidi, Ms. Defei and Mr. Kevin those three people Willie they are what introduced me to coding and they are the people that keep pushing me to do better. So these are your teachers. My coaches. Your coaches. Excellent. Excellent. Along with Willie I'd like to thank one of our coaches Coach Kevin he's over there with the phone. He's our main priority mentor with this coding Oracle program and he really does help and guide us through the whole process of coding even when we're frustrated and want to give up sometimes use the main support system for all of us that really helps us get through and getting our work done. I'd also like to thank Coach Kevin and Ms. Brasidi. They're the ones who provide a support system for us. They also help us. They provide a safe space for us. So I think that's one of the main reasons we also continue with the program. We feel safe and we're like a family there. So not only do we get to do something we're very passionate about but we're very close. Nice. Edward. I would also like to thank Ms. Brasidi. Ms. Brasidi and Mr. Coach Kevin and I also like to thank Mr. Saplan who's not here today sadly. And yes they're like a support system. They really help push us and help us through the nights and like they really do care for us especially when we'd be up at night around 2 a.m. in the morning and we send emails out to them. They'll answer back right away. Yes. They really do care for us very much. Wow. Yes. I would like to thank my amazing teachers Ms. Fidjikowski and Ms. Winegardner for always supporting me with everything I do. My parents for taking me here and always being helpful and supportive and Ms. Washington for inviting me to this amazing event. I'd like to thank my mom and Mr. David for allowing me to come here. Ms. Lenora and Ms. Fidjikowski for letting me be in checkmate and major. So with that in mind would you please go ahead and give our kids camp panelists a wonderful round of applause. Absolutely. I personally want to thank a couple of people for the opportunity again. Mr. David Bassett and his wife with WordCamp. This is my second year involved. First I would love I would like to thank all of the panelists for joining us. My mom and my aunt Carol and their absence Lynette Washington Carol Weech. My daughter's godmother came to join us Ms. Tina Hankerson over to the far left of me. My fiance Mr. Collins of dads be on duty and my Broward County parents teachers from Broward County schools. Thank you all for coming. We're all of the day County students by the way of your day County students Broward County students where are you Palm Beach County students I met some from Palm Beach County. So we want to say thank you for coming and being a part of today's work camp. Ms. Lenora Porter thank you so much for your mentorship with WordCamp. She was speaking on yesterday and I would like to at this time welcome to the stage Mr. David Bassett. Let's give him a wonderful hand. Thank you. Hey thank you very much. A lot is like I just shut your computer off. It's okay. What the heck. Hi thank you. I only want to interject a little bit here because we just have a few more minutes. We have the e-commerce talks coming up after this. There's before you go. I wanted to relate a few things. First thing is thank you all for coming and thank you all for your patience and understanding there. We were getting. There was a lot of people that were supposed to be here today for the rest of the conference but since children involved in the bridge collapse we understand that some people was not be here. We appreciate the fact that everyone understands that there are certain things that we could not control and we just wanted to make you make you aware that we appreciate your patience and being here and supporting us this morning. That being said I have two things. First the kids camp is ready to go with the steam and stem stuff and we encourage you guys to go over there. Where that is is if you were here yesterday it is in the same room for the younger kids. It's in the same room as it was yesterday. If you are not here yesterday maybe you could follow some of the parents and kids to that room. It is called the RB building. There should be signs pointing you in that direction if not I will personally take you there myself. Secondly though we've had kids camp here for we've had kids we've had kids camp here for five years. This is just the third year we've had it for the panel. What we are looking for is interest in breaking this off from word camp possibly or having another word camp just for kids in the summer of this year. So and I'll be honest with you. I'm a guy I'm bluntly honest a little bit too honest sometimes. We were trying to get we our problem is that we don't know enough of the right people. Like we the organizations we reached out to some of them some of them just basically dropped out on us because for the for promotion of this event. So what we're looking for is especially in the Broward and Dade County School system and we're not sure where this is going to be but what we want this year is we want to we want to do a kids camp and not this big not this long as this weekend but maybe one day maybe it maybe it's at FIU here. I'm sure they would go along with it. That would be nice but it could also be in Broward County as well and we want to be able it'll be it would be both coding WordPress and Steven stem focused. So what we we can do all the organization we can take care of sponsorships for the most part but hey if anybody wants to sponsor that that's fine but what we're looking for is support is basically word of mouth and support. So what we're going to do is that we're going to send an email probably after I were finished I finished dying later this week and I'll be honest with you my wife also runs my wife is a high school math teacher she runs a steam and stem summer camp in Broward County and she's also on board in fact you'll meet her if you go over there in a few minutes apologies in advance and but what so we are fully what we are looking for is that eventually I will be probably stepping back from the larger work camps. I want to take over something more youth related and I and I can tell you right now that you eventually everybody in this room is going to grow up. What we're doing here is we have young kids but I also don't forget about the future the older kids do you know what we did with the older kids yesterday. OK that sounds bad when I said out loud but what we taught them yesterday we taught the older kids in the track about 60 kids and their parents yesterday about e-commerce websites and how to make a simple e-commerce website and we're teaching them today how to market those websites themselves for their teenagers. This is something that I want the kids in here in some way shape or form when they get a little older. Don't worry I'm not putting pressure on you to build an e-commerce site tomorrow. That'd be nice though. That is our hope. We're not just trying to teach kids how to code. There's a lot of coding initiatives out there and that's great. I'm glad I'm glad I'm seeing it. Steven stem is growing. You know this initiative things are getting on the right track. What we're looking for is a night is is a nice diverse group of young people that we can hopefully teach WordPress and general coding and general steaming stem stuff too. We will probably need some help with educators or teachers and volunteers and that sort of thing. But we want to do it this summer. And if you guys are interested to just wait for the email and I will make this fine young woman probably part of it if she wants to be part of it. So if you can't reach out to me you reach out to Ms. Washington. So I really really appreciate it. I wanted to make that announcement here now because you guys are wearing our shirts yellow shirts. So if you like what you see we'll make sure to get more fun stuff too. It's not just teaching it's all the stickers and the buttons and the happy things and kids trivia you know it's all that kind of stuff. So anyway I wanted to thank you very much for your support. Let you know what we're planning on doing and I wanted to thank ask you for your if you can support us in that initiative this summer. We'll find a place to do it. And even if you know anyway I'm rambling but thank you very much. And we're going to a round of applause for these young kids. So so now if you want to head over to the steam stem camp they're all waiting waiting for they're waiting for you.