My biggest area of growth I have experienced as a Vivero Fellow has been in the problem-solving area, especially when it comes to thinking about solutions when I am stuck or troubleshooting. I think that it’s because of all of the digital tools and trainings that I have done so far, alongside the work that I’ve done on last year’s digital project. I think that an area that I have room to improve on would be collaborating with others. I hope to continue improving on this front by getting more experience mentoring my peers, whether they be other fellows or students needing help with digital humanities. As part of my digital project this year, my lead has also suggested I work with students in his class, before they submit their projects to our archive/site, so this could be an additional opportunity for me to practice my peer mentoring and collaborating skills.
Personally, even though it may not be super close to what I am doing for my digital project, I would like to learn the digital tool Twine, and experiment around a little bit with it. Although the stories and narratives that my project lead and I will tell are going to be more spatially oriented, I do still think it’s useful and interesting to explore other mediums of storytelling and worldbuilding. I am especially interested in Twine because growing up I was always interested in both video game design and choose-your-own-adventure stories, and I feel like I would enjoy the chance to do both as part of my training. I also wouldn’t mind getting familiarized with TimelineJS as a supplement to my StoryMapJS work for the American Culture Site Map. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind getting familiarized with most tools.