Hello! Today, I am reviewing Omeka training.

I thought the navigation was clear and easy to understand, but as I explore around, I thought that would be amazing if the documentation had more information about building a page from a simple page, including a potentially-helpful plugins. I was not sure how I could create blocks on the website to click on, like you do with elementors on WordPress. I thought this navigation will extremely helpful and make this tool more accessible for folks who are not as familiar with the coding.

Hello! Today, I will reflect on my progress as a Vivero Fellow and report on our project, “Grinnell’s Early Chinese Alumni.”

As a continuing Vivero Fellow, I think I grew a fundamental skill and knowledge to set up various different digital tools, such as WordPress, Omeka, ArcGIS, Storymap, etc. Trainings also inform me about how to make a digital project more accessible for the wider audience using captions, alternative texts, and using the color assessment tool. Implementing more accessible features has been a place is something I become aware and able to practice thanks to the training for me as a Vivero Fellow. So far, I like to think about the presentation methods online to improve the way the knowledge is presented so that the intended audience can engage in the conversation, which is made possible by those training on accessibility and wide-range of digital tools.

With those skills, the areas that I would like to further develop is coding, recording, and mentoring. As an aspiring researcher, I would like to present my study in the most sustainable, accessible form. To think about the sustainability of the website, I would like to learn more about the type of coding that is both sustainable throughout the change in the applications and servers and flexible to the updates. For a similar reason, I need to learn more about how to record the physical/scholarly material, preserve it online to potentially pass it to the other researchers and curiosity-chasers who might be interested in those records. Lastly, I have not had quite a few opportunity to mentor other students and navigate them along using digital tools. I would like to grow my interpersonal skills in the field of Digital Studies! As I am hoping to continue my research and study at graduate school and further, I hope to grow my skills in Omeka and ArcGIS to present the way of understanding the world by more accessible and engaging ways.

Today, I worked on determining my goal and clarifying my working style on MOU! Last year, I had difficulty determining schedules, therefore, I added some elements of my working style that I need to have and my goal for my project Lead so that we can work well together. I am meeting Dr. Feng tomorrow, and I am looking forward to learning more about our project this year!

Hi! This is the last reflection of the semester from me… I will reflect on the takeaways and challenges so that I can grow even more as a digital humanities fellow next year.

My biggest take away

Nothing is a great teacher like hands-on experience. I learned this through my project with the faculty lead, where we used CollectionBuilder. At first, I was going through the written document about CollectionBuilder and thought I understood everything about it. I was wrong. I did not understand the meaning of CollectionBuilder being a static website instead of dynamic, how the spreadsheet will turn into website, or what it would look like as a final product. I strongly regret not exploring further with my tutorial to make a sample Collectionbuilder website. When my project lead activated the website, it all made sense which part of the spreadsheet goes into the coding then into the interface of the website. I strongly recomend future fellows to prioritize exploring the tools on your own: think documentation and tutorial as a navigation map. You will look at it when you are lost. You all know that walking around on your own will make you learn about the city best, which applies to the learning of digital tools too.

Work training

Wikimedia was truly helpful for me to find out the training schedule. I can always come back to the Wikimedia documentation and remind myself the goal or the content of the training. So much emphasis on the text made me feel like I need to read every single things written on the document, which was not always the best way to learn about the tool. It was beneficial that some of the training had a video guidance, which does not necessitate me a reading. Accessible training built the foundation of my website making principle and consideration for the accessibility of my product to the audience of my aim.

Next Steps

Next semester, I would like to make a feasible workflow and scedule with a practical, specific, and reasonable weekly goal for myself. I would like to be able to envision the final product even in the initial phase of our project. Before next semester starts, I will gain even more digital humanities skill through my internship (about digital archives! which is related to our project this semester) and hope to apply that to the next project. I created documentation about working with VS code and Git specifically for Linux users like me. I need to create documentation for configuration of metadata on spreadsheet, research process, and editing on VS code. Next semester, I hope to collaborate more with Grinnell Digital Lab and work on 3D/immersive digital tools like 360 degree video.

 

Lastly, I am deeply thankful for my project lead, Libby Cave, Liz, Tierney, and amazing vivero fellows that have been supported me throughout this journey during the semester. Without your support, my learning was impossible. I thank everyone so so much!

Hello! We only have two weeks and tons of work left for the school! This week, I trained myself on ArcGIS StoryMaps. Last time I used it for Prof. Montague’s Feminist Geography class, I first created ArcGIS map then turned it into StoryMap. This time, I used the template for the ordered tour. This template allows map-builders to create the flow of the map navigation for the reader. One thing that I need to explore more is how to enrich the tour experience on the storymaps. I wanted to create the map-visual-narrative sequence for each location, but I ran out of my time figuring it out. When I finalize this StoryMap for my fischelowitz project, I would like to take more time to understand how to implement this sequence into the map. This StoryMap, as you may tell by the name, is an excellent tool to complement the story that thoroughly geographical information cannot tell alone. As this blog tells, this is not the house for the lame images and descriptions; it is a place where you tell rich stories with the assistance of geographical information, visuals, and texts. This tool, however, will reinforce a certain understanding of the geographical information as the narrative is dominated by the author. In terms of accessibility, in addition, we can add alternative text to make the visual information accessible for people with different visual perceptions.

Happy Sunday! I hope you who are reading this blog are taking a GOOD care of yourselves. Today, on a rainy day in April, I trained myself on Audacity! I have used this tool to make a final project for the digital history class. It was good to remind myself revisit the app and understand the navigation once again. The main features were on the top tool bar, so I clicked around to see what they do. The effects and mix features looked like it would be useful to make a mix audio or something like that. I think I will be able to help someone using this for the class project (for podcast, film-making etc) but I still have to learn more if anyone is trying to use this for their music making. It is really frustrating that the app does not take m4a or mp3 and I needed to convert audio to available files like WAV. I would definitely like to explore this app’s potential to make a cool audio, especially for stage performance! I would like to use this to edit audio for my performance!