Category: Year 2

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.

The only issue that popped up on my portfolio site was that I did not add alt-text to the photo of my pet rabbit, Snickers (you can see him on my about page). When I fixed this issue, the accessibility checker flagged the photo again, stating that the alt-text was not concise enough. After omitting some words, the issue was fixed. Moving forward, when I add images to my site (like more photos of Snickers), I will make sure to write helpful alt-text. That way, assistive technologies like screen readers can read the visual content aloud to users who may be blind or have low vision.

I anticipate the need for alt-text as I create the framework for my digital project. This is because my project, the American Culture Site Map, will be a showcasing of student projects, which will inevitably involve images, be it on the showcased projects themselves or the overarching map. There are other needs that I am keeping in the back of my mind, such as making sure the site has a decent amount of visual contrast, or the option to zoom in on text.

I think the most important piece of advice I would give new Vivero Fellows specifically about learning on the fly is to give yourself grace and patience when you encounter difficulties, or when software doesn’t work the way you want it to. A large component of learning, including learning digital tools on the fly, consists of really having to sit and think about an optimal solution to a problem (like how best to categorize metadata), or different alternatives, or revisiting one’s initial approach. These things take time, and these things can be rather frustrating! It may seem difficult in the moment while you’re learning, but the time and frustration are very important to the learning process.

I guess another piece of (maybe unsolicited) advice I would give would be to not be afraid to ask for help. Sometimes you may simply be stuck having tried just about everything, and that would be the best time to get another set of eyes or hands to help you out. Who knows, maybe whoever you’re asking for help needs a fresh perspective on something as well.

1. I’m most excited to get the chance to personalize my portfolio website, and to hopefully integrate more of the project that I work on in my portfolio than I did last year. I’m also looking forward to adding more applications and learning how to implement more digital tools as I go on to work on another digital humanities project.
2. Something I’m still wondering about my WordPress site is the extent of things that I am able to add. Last year, the majority of what was on my portfolio were reflections on the digital tools I learned, rather than a demonstration of me showcasing the tools themselves (I would display the showcases specifically in Teams).
3. I think my experience helping new fellows with WordPress is probably going to be similar to how I will help my peers learn how to use digital tools in the digital studio.