{"id":677,"date":"2016-07-19T06:48:42","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T06:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2016.rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/?p=677"},"modified":"2016-07-25T02:46:33","modified_gmt":"2016-07-25T02:46:33","slug":"new-england-tech-and-wordcamp-ri-what-a-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/new-england-tech-and-wordcamp-ri-what-a-team\/","title":{"rendered":"New England Tech and WordCamp RI: what a team!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Anthony “Ajay” Coletta is an Assistant Professor for\u00a0 Graphics\/Multimedia\/Web at the New England Institute of Technology.\u00a0 He was also very instrumental in getting WordCamp RI to the NEIT campus.\u00a0 He shares his thoughts on the collaboration between New England Tech and WordCamp RI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Q: Professor you have been active in getting WordCamp RI to the East Greenwich campus of the New England Institute of Technology.\u00a0 Why is this a win-win situation for both NEIT and WordCamp RI?<\/p>\n

A: 2015 was the first year that Word Camp was held at New England Tech and the response was fantastic. I spoke to many Word Campers who said that the accommodations at New England Tech were just what they needed.\u00a0 The college was clean and spacious, the infrastructure, especially the wifi, was supported well, and the ability to park securely right on campus was very convenient.<\/p>\n

New England Tech is really astute at understanding that in order to help students fully prepare for their careers, students need to engage with people in their industries. Word Camp brings such a diverse group of people interested in learning and collaborating that hosting the event is tremendous opportunity and honor for New England Tech.
\n—<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Q: In your professional life, when you’re not helping to organize WordCamp RI, what do you do?\u00a0 What role does WordPress play?\u00a0 What role does WordPress have with NEIT’s academics?<\/p>\n

A: I teach in the Graphics, Multimedia & Web design department and in both the Associate and Bachelor degree programs, we offer courses in WordPress development and students really enjoying building their personal portfolios using the platform.<\/p>\n

Personally I use WordPress for a couple of different activities, the most frequently visited site is for a band I perform with called \u201cHey Nineteen,\u201d\u00a0 a Tribute to Steely Dan, http:\/\/hey19band.com\/<\/a> and I also manage some commercial sites for clients. I have been developing websites since the late 1980s and the WordPress platform (and extensive community) has been the best solution for web development and content management by far.
\n—<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Q: One topic you teach is how to customize WordPress themes.\u00a0 What’s the advantage to doing that when WordPress comes ready-to-use right from the start?<\/p>\n

A: One of the things I really love about WordPress is the level of customization the platform offers. You can use the built-in customizer and change many design items in the theme just with a click of a button, or if you are interested in working with code and want to make more advanced modifications, the open source platform also allows you to do that. WordPress accommodates all types of users & designers.\u00a0 Brilliant!
\n—<\/p>\n

Q: Is there any follow-up that makes sense once WordCamp RI is over?<\/p>\n

A: Once Word Camp has concluded, be sure to check out the excellent RI WordPress Meetup group that keeps the conversations rolling all year long, http:\/\/www.meetup.com\/WordPressRI\/<\/a>
\nMany of the folks who organize and participate in Word Camp are often at these meetups and share the newest, latest and greatest things happening that influence how we use the web.<\/p>\n

Ajay is on Facebook: www.facebook.com\/hey19<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony “Ajay” Coletta is an Assistant Professor for\u00a0 Graphics\/Multimedia\/Web at the New England Institute of Technology.\u00a0 He was also very instrumental in getting WordCamp RI to the NEIT campus.\u00a0 He shares his thoughts on the collaboration between New England Tech … Continue reading New England Tech and WordCamp RI: what a team!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12477116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10402,29,784521,784903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizers","category-speakers","category-wordcamp-overview","category-wordpress-info"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7dOoO-aV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12477116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":722,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions\/722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.wordcamp.org\/2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}