Marie Chatfield Rivas
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Interested in having one of these talks, or something new, at your conference, workshop, or meetup? Contact me and let’s chat!

Slide with title Don't Just a <div> On It: Use the Power of the Browser! by @MarieChatfield

Don’t Just Put a <div> On It—Use the Power of the Browser!

Write better websites with less code using semantic HTML elements.

The humble <div> is a powerful and flexible element. Throw enough CSS and JavaScript on it, and a <div> can be anything. But should it be?

“Semantic HTML” is a method of using elements that best match what your content means and does. But how do you write better markup if you don’t know your options?

Join the learning journey to fill your semantic HTML toolkit with the coolest elements you never knew existed. Learn specific elements to use in different scenarios and how to wield the full power of the HTML spec.

You’ll write less code while making your pages more accessible and mobile-friendly!

This talk has been given at EmberCamp 2019 in Chicago.

Resources:

Blog Post: Don’t Just Put a <div> On It: Long-form blog post version, with extensive resource and examples.

Slides from EmberCamp Chicago, September 2019

Individual Contributors Managing Interns: Name a More Iconic Duo, I’ll Wait

Grow your team’s potential by letting your reports manage interns

Internships can be an exciting opportunity for entry-level employees to gain valuable expertise and complete meaningful, and high-impact work. But the best internship experiences don’t happen by accident!

Encourage your interns to thrive and develop their skills by preparing a defined problem space, then giving them the freedom to choose their path within it—while still giving them regular feedback and guidance. Learn practical suggestions to help your interns excel from onboarding to offboarding, and every step along the way.

But wait, there’s more! Get the most out of your internship program by identifying individual contributors on your team to manage your interns. Hear the perspective of an aspiring Lead Dev on the value of being trusted to mentor an intern, and how to support your reports who are stepping into a formal mentorship role for the first time.

This talk has been given at the July 2019 Lead Dev Meetup in Austin.

Resources:

Slides from Lead Dev Meetup Austin, July 2019

An Event-ful Evening with JavaScript

Your one stop shop for handling events in JavaScript

Handling events like clicks and keypresses as users interact with your content is essential for any web app. Learn the fundamentals of how events work in JavaScript, including:

  • an introduction to the DOM and HTML standards
  • how to attach event listeners (there’s so many ways!)
  • how event propagation works, what “bubbling” and “capturing” mean, and why you should care
  • the differences between preventDefault, stopPropagation, stopImmediatePropagation and return false (and when you should use each one!)
  • how to delegate events and when you should

Whether you’re just learning JavaScript or are an experienced front-end developer, you’ll walk away with a deeper familiarity with events.

This talk is adapted from an Ember.js-specific talk, Deep Dive on Ember Events.

This talk has been given at the October 2018 Austin JavaScript Meetup in Austin.

Resources:

Deep Dive on Ember Events

Everything you need to know about handling DOM events in Ember

Handling events like clicks and keypresses as users interact with your app is essential for any Ember application. What are the different ways of listening for events in Ember? How do they interact? What are the performance implications of each approach? What kind of bugs can you introduce if you don’t understand them?

Learn the fundamentals of how events work in Ember, starting with the basics of DOM events and working up to the lifecycle of Ember events. You’ll be able to implement event listeners with confidence and debug with clarity once you have a complete mental model of Ember events!

This talk has been given at the September 2017 Ember.js Meetup in San Francisco, EmberFest 2017 in Berlin, and EmberConf 2018 in Portland.

Resources:

Low Power Mode

Managing Your Emotional and Creative Energy

Do you ever finish your work for the day feeling absolutely drained, exhausted to the point that you no longer have energy for your hobbies or passion projects? Crafting beautiful and functional software, communicating effectively with your team, and continuing to learn new technologies all require immense creative and emotional effort — which may be exacerbated by marginalized status. True work-life balance considers not just the breakdown of time on your calendar, but the quality of that time and the energy invested in different aspects of your day. Learn practical techniques for managing your emotional and creative energy at work to prevent burn-out and reclaim your personal time.

This talk was originally given at AlterConf Portland 2016.

Resources:

Blog Post: Low Power Mode slides and speaker notes

Building and Deploying a Web App Workshop

Create a JavaScript web app from scratch and deploy it to Heroku so that others can use it.

1-1.5 hour workshop that guides attendees through writing and deploying a JavaScript web app using the command line.

This talk is ideal for people who have some familiarity with the command line and some basics of web development. Beginners may prefer to work through the written tutorial on their own at a more comfortable pace, as the workshop is jam-packed with information and moves fairly quickly! The workshop was originally developed for WECode 2017.

Firebase Workshop

Bring a laptop and leave an hour later with an app that stores data in the cloud.

Beginner-friendly, 1-1.5 hour workshop that teaches the basics of how to use Firebase to read and write data without needing to write a server.

This talk is perfect for hackathons, and is especially designed for people who may be interested in building an app but don’t have much (or any) web development experience. The workshop was originally developed for FemmeHacks 2016, and has also been given at Spectra.

The workshop is extensively documented and is also provided in written tutorial form.

How to Even Web

What even is the web? How does it work?

What actually is a server? What does “static assets” even mean? Where do databases come into play?

This talk originally grew out of a short tutorial I gave as the introduction to my Firebase Workshop. Each subsequent time I’ve given it, the content has grown as participants tell me what else they’d like to know.

Features lots of audience participation, since the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else.