Category: Year 1

I think that the most important thing that I learned this year wasn’t any particular digital tool (even though Omeka was pivotal to my digital project), but rather the skill of learning new digital tools. I felt as if I got a good sense of how the weekly training modules worked, and I could compare my experience learning one tool or doing one of the trainings to another, and to develop a more general approach to teaching myself unfamiliar technologies or digital tools effectively and confidently in the future. One piece of advice I would give my past self about becoming a Vivero Fellow is to make sure you log your hours on your worklog and ADP, because even small tasks (such as composing emails, zoom calls with project lead, and writing this blog post, to name a few) will count as work time! Additionally, I would also caution my past self to not ‘rush’ through the trainings in the hopes that you would finish them as fast as possible such that you would have more time to work on other things during a drop-in shift. Instead, I would want to spend some time after completing the training, either by myself or with another fellow, to explore a digital tool further.

For my project this year, my project lead and I digitized an existing database of peer reviewed references (mainly scholarly articles) informing effective ways to teach STEM subjects. Our database is created, and we have implemented multiple systems to upload more references in the future. I think that the part of my work that I am most proud of is my growth when it comes to reading and engaging with the peer reviewed references. While most of my role in creating the database was technical, a large portion of the work at the beginning of the year consisted of me analyzing each reference before writing a short summary, similar to an abstract, and subsequently adding “tags” or keywords that corresponded to each reference (these would typically be words found frequently within each reference, or words noting specific pedagogical techniques or demographics within a study). The documentation that I have created for this project has been written to make the database sustainable and usable beyond my own involvement, as it clearly outlines how to add new references, apply consistent tagging practices ,and navigating the system for future site contributors.

Looking forward, I would be interested in exploring digital scholarship methods that expand on the work I did this academic year, particularly in areas like data visualization and text analysis (such as Voyant). I am particularly interested in how large collections of information (such as the articles I worked with) can be organized, analyzed, and presented in more interactive and accessible ways. As well as this, I’d also like to learn more about mapping tools and visualization platforms that could help indicate patterns or trends within data. And, as a physics major, I’m also interested in how digital tools can support further research and communication within STEM education, particularly in making research more accessible.

Coming into Grinnell, I really did not think that I would major in any of the sciences, let alone Physics, the one that I avoided the most in high school. To me (or at least me prior to coming to Grinnell), while the theory and concepts seemed interesting, the analytical rigor combined with all of the formulas and derivations seemed far too intimidating. However, with all that in mind, I still decided to enroll in a physics course in my second semester. Despite being an introductory course, the material was pretty tough, and I initially struggled. Be that as it may, working through my initial struggle ultimately made physics more rewarding, as persistence (and tons of textbook problems) allowed me to see and feel real growth, not just in how I understood the material I learned, but also how I approached learning itself.

As a Vivero fellow and digital scholar, my job itself doesn’t have me doing much in the way of solving or deriving physics equations, but I would be lying if I said that my work as a Vivero fellow was unrelated to my experience learning physics. If anything, struggling through physics reshaped how I thought about learning itself. Concepts that once felt overwhelming helped me better understand why certain approaches to teaching can either help or hinder student learning.

Through this project, and working with my super cool project lead, Minna Mahlab (which I’m not just saying because I know she’ll read this), I began to see teaching science as more than just transmitting information. Productive teaching requires careful attention to how students approach new material, such as how concepts are introduced, the role of intrinsic or extrinsic biases, or how space is made for struggle. By working with Minna to explore how science education research is conducted and communicated, I gained a deeper appreciation for the work that goes into shaping effective science education. Beyond the project itself, she was also a source of encouragement and perspective, offering (often snarky, but very useful) guidance that helped me navigate both academic challenges, and aspects of my personal life.

Overall, my experience with this Vivero project allowed me to connect my own personal academic growth with questions about how science is taught and learned by others. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the thought that goes into education, and it has shaped how I approach my own learning moving forward.

Since there’s so many different options as to how one can edit, or use tools in Voyant, the initial process of learning how to navigate the tool was certainly more challenging for me compared to learning how to use Gale Digital Scholar Lab (which I’ll call Gale from here on out). Gale’s framework, and the steps one needs to take when using it (build, clean, then analyze) were much more straightforward from the outside looking in. As I previously said in my week 6 reflection when learning Gale for the first time, Gale helps you walk through the process of using it, which I feel makes it more approachable, and a better entry point into text analysis than Voyant for someone who’s just started out using these tools.

That being said, I did find that once I got the hang of using Voyant, I began to really enjoy using the tool, despite still being a little overwhelmed with everything you could do, and all their categories of analyzing text. I would still feel a little hesitant to say that I could 100% help someone use this tool, because there’s so much to learn, and I still need to figure out all of what Voyant is capable of.

Overall I really enjoyed helping out with interviewing potential new Vivero fellows. It has only been roughly a year since I myself had my interview, so during the interviews I sat in for, I thought back to when I was in the interviewees shoes and my responses to the the questions that were asked, which if I remember correctly, were the same in 2025 and 2026. I remember liking how my interview was more conversational than confrontational, and I felt that it was the same way with the interviews I sat in for this year. One thing I found interesting was that all of the candidates I helped interview were all in their second or third year (two second-year students, and one third-year student respectively), while I applied to be a Fellow as a first year. As I will be a returning fellow next school year, I wonder how many rising second years will be in my cohort.

I have learned many new skills as a Vivero fellow, and I have also had the opportunity to improve upon older skills that I may have used in the past, but hadn’t gotten the chance to frequently hone prior to becoming a Vivero fellow. Many of the new skills I have learned through Vivero have been technical, like the tools that we learned during our weekly trainings/deliverables from the first semester. Some existing skills that I have strengthened have been my communication skills (from peer mentoring and also working on my digital project with Minna), and troubleshooting. There were a lot of skills that I were aware of, but had not really thought too much about, as they seemed like the basic ‘building blocks’ for skills that I did give thought to. However, from this activity, and from putting my experience as a Vivero fellow on my resume/CV, I have become more aware of just how many skills I use as part of this job. One area that I am always trying to improve upon is anything to do with communication, as I am rather shy/introverted, and communicating my ideas, along with presenting them, has traditionally been intimidating to me. Even though I know that I have improved in that front, I know I still have a long way to go.

This semester, I hope to explore Omeka more, specifically within the context of my digital project. I also would like to explore the different features in WordPress to make my site look nicer. Right now, I am pretty content with how my site looks, but I am curious as to what cool features/aesthetic aspects I can include in the future. I would also like to develop my documentation skills, as I did not hone them very much last semester. To achieve my goals, I will probably revisit old trainings from the first semester, and I will also most likely collaborate with other fellows during my shifts if I need help solving a problem.

Something that I think I did well last semester was getting all of my deliverables in on time, even during busier weeks. I also think I did a good job communicating with my project lead, and making sure we were both on the same page. One thing that I will try to do better on this semester will be to provide better documentation for my digital project. I will also try to explore more about the digital tools we learn on my own time, as that was something I did not get around to doing much last semester.

Looking back at this semester, I think that the most important thing I learned were the non-technical skills, specifically the troubleshooting and problem-solving aspect of a lot of the training and tools we were exposed to. That being said, I feel like the most important technical tool that I learned about was Omeka, as it is the foundation for the database of my digital project. It did seem kind of difficult and clunky at first, since there is a lot going on in Omeka, but I think I have gotten the hang of using it for now. Some advice I would give my past self would probably be to try to find opportunities to explore tools outside of drop-in shifts and weekly trainings. A goal of mine is to do that more in the coming semester, specifically with learning more about what Omeka can do.

I think the training model worked pretty well for me, especially the self-pacing. There were a few weeks where I was notably busier than usual, and the self-paced model gave me the opportunity to complete training modules/blog posts in advance. While the Omeka training has probably been the most important for my project, I also really feel like week two’s training on accessibility has been important as well. I remember meeting with my project lead (who is AWESOME by the way) to discuss her goals with how she wants the database to be, and she made it very clear that she wanted the database to be as user friendly as possible, where the organizing principles are so clear that it would be accessible to everyone. There also weren’t anything that I found immediately confusing either.

As far as next steps for my project go, I hope to get all of the articles and peer reviewed references that I have created a summary and keywords for digitized in the near future, hopefully towards the end of January. I also want to add to the database my own selection of articles and references that I have found, and I would like to create documentation on how a future Vivero fellow can do the same. I hope to also work on documentation that goes into detail about how to use Omeka, and the different nuances and tasks that needed to be done to set up the database.

In the future, like I mentioned before, I would like to continue learning more about how to use Omeka, specifically in regards to the design aspect of things. I am also interested in learning more about the tool CollectionBuilder, despite my digital project not being built upon that framework. I would also like to explore WordPress a bit more, specifically in order to make my website look better, although I am pretty happy with how it looks now. All in all, I am really grateful for the opportunity to be a Vivero fellow, and I am really looking forward to continuing on next year. Yay!

I think I would feel pretty confident with helping someone use StoryMaps. I had used it prior for one of my classes, and I felt pretty confident with using it this week. That being said, I do think that there is more for me to explore, and I will most likely try some of StoryMaps’s other features when I have the time. I feel like StoryMaps is one of the more intuitive tools that I have learned how to use so far, not only because I had some prior experience with it, but also because it is very user friendly in how different elements are located. I especially like how you are able to integrate different widgets, such as videos, images, and maps, within your text blurbs. As far as the limitations of StoryMaps goes, it felt as if there were a limited amount of customization options, when it came to changing how the layout looked, and it felt like cropping the images was kind of inconvenient.

I think that what makes a good StoryMap is intentional design, where all the elements work together to help support the StoryMap’s narrative. Something to avoid would be the temptation to use all the features available, which can create a cluttered and confusing experience for a viewer. Instead, sometimes less can be more, and it’s better sometimes to focus more on what you’re trying to tell rather than what the software can do.

Learning how to use Audacity seemed fairly straightforward, although I am pretty sure that I do not know all of what the software is capable of. I was able to record myself and overlay sound effects on my recording, and I was also able to manipulate the volume of each track. In the future if I have time to revisit this tool, I would like to try to learn more about “blending” the audio, and having audio clips fade in and out rather than just overlaying them on top of one another.

I think I would feel pretty confident helping someone learn and set up Audacity, however I would like to explore more of what Audacity can do.