Vivero Portfolio Year 2

1. Looking back on learning: what are the most important things you’ve learned this semester?
2. What advice would you give your past self about becoming a Vivero Fellow and learning how to do this work?
3. Reflection on the training model: what worked and what didn’t work for you? What stuck with you? Are there things you found confusing or not helpful?
4. What are your next steps for project work next semester? What documentation have you created, and what documentation do you still need to create?
5. What digital scholarship topics, methods, or tools might you be interested in exploring next semester, or in the future?

I have learned a lot about how important it is to have thorough training resources at my disposal–there were many things I didn’t remember how to do or thought that things would come to me intuitively didn’t. But it’s also important to rely on the resources because we are not being examined or tested for recall, and the more I work with them, the easier it will be and the more intuitive digital tools will be. I find that the more digital tools I use the easier it is to come. 

If I was going to give my past self any advice as Vivero Fellow is just trust the process! Everything just sort of clicked for me one day, and definitely to come back for a second year because I find it more intuitive and nice to come into a place where I do feel like I have some understanding of the work we are doing. So much we do at Grinnell is novel to us and also short. Somedays I feel like I haven’t learned anything here, but it is gratifying and meaningful work and feels good to feel like you have learned something practical.

I think the training and tools overall were good. I always would recommend more multimedia resources like pictures and videos. I also would have liked more suggestions for self-guided training of digital tools because I always preferred learning a new one over reviewing an old one with the same training. Overall, it was really beneficial. 

The next steps of my project is creating the submission form and uploading the next media as it becomes available. I am pretty far done with my written documentation but I also want to create some simple videos of how to manage the website so it is sustainable after I am done with my fellowship.

I’m not really sure what’s next for me! I think I would be interesting in learning more GIS or similar website development tools. For my second-year project it might be fun for me to focus on creating a guide to different GIS programs and why you may elect to use one over another, specifically for GIS but also a guide for how to pick which digital tool. Sometimes at the beginning of the first year it can be overwhelming to know which digital tool is helpful, although the co-leads always have good suggestions! But it could be nice to have a little key.