week 3 [09/15 – 09/21]

i visited CERA this week to gain a better understanding of what happens at CERA and the different projects and prescribed burns that occur. it was a very educational experience and i would like to thank Jake and Emily for agreeing to take me out there. i have also started learning how to use storymaps and using the outline Jake created to help guide my creation of the website (and categorization of activities).

this week’s training was with excel. though i am relatively familiar with the program, i hadn’t learned how to create or use PivotCharts. at first, we used AutoSum on some fields. it is a great way to do calculations fast but has basically no effect on fields with text based content as there aren’t any operations to perform on it.

the training then directed us to create PivotCharts. i was able to create the first chart that compared the average ages of male and female householders:

PivotChart comparing average age of male and female householders (based on the 1870 Federal Census of the Grinnell Township)

as well as another one comparing the average age of either a male or female householder and the value of their personal estate:

PivotChart comparing the average age of either male or female householders and the value of their personal estate (based on the 1870 Federal Census of the Grinnell Township)

you could also created different shaped pivot charts but i feel as though ones solely based on fields like the last names of householders would not reveal much information about the database.

the bar and line chart visualizations are the best way to view a large amount of the data at a glance and often offer a more direct comparison and trend analysis. any other is highly dependent on what information is required and the database provided. In this case, it ended up cluttering the chart and making the information a lot harder to understand, which, as stated earlier, had the effect of not revealing much.

over the next week, i hope to get more work done on the project, get some photos of the prescribed burns at CERA, and work on the omeka trainings.

⋆˙⟡ steph

week 2 [09/08 – 09/14]

this week’s training focused on accessibility.

the perspectives videos helped me understand the importance of features i hadn’t really considered when building websites like keyboard navigation or screen reader use. the readings also introduced me to a few features that are necessary in order to make a website accessible.

an example of a technical feature that can be implemented is labelling UI elements with labels that match their visuals. a conceptual design feature is making transcripts/audio descriptions of any video and audio content.

after doing the readings, I ran this website through an accessibility checker and ended up fixing contrast issues and adding an alt text to the image on the home page. there seems to be a header issue that shows up on the checker but it isn’t necessarily one I can fix as it relates to page name styling and I can’t edit that with elementor.

i also managed to meet with my project leads and I’m heading to CERA next week to get a look at what exactly I will be basing the project on. the sample information I have received has also been helpful in getting insight into what I am meant to do or focus on over the course of the year.

⋆˙⟡ Steph

week 1 [09/01-09/07]

this week, i continued to work on [and deployed] this site, got my project assignment, and contacted my project lead – i also had a my first few drop-in shifts.

this week’s training included readings that essentially touched on learning how to learn to do your job and the structure of domains. i don’t mind the fact that i have to learn how to do this job [or learn new tools] on the fly. it’s one of my favorite aspects of the job and has the potential to teach me how to adapt and learn new content in a short period of time.

i found that the reading about domains was more of a refresher on both domains and subdomains, but it also listed a few tools that vivellos have access to and that i can’t wait to use.

i’m looking forward to starting work on my project and working more drop-in shifts next week.

⋆˙⟡ steph

fall retreat [08/30/25]

retreat day was pretty productive. as a new vivello [vivero fellow], i found it pretty helpful to have a lot of the information necessary for drop-in hours, project work and individual work given to us during the retreat.

the morning session focused more on a general overview of the program. we ended it by adding new subdomains to our sites.grinnell.edu websites and installing wordpress.

i would describe the afternoon session as more techincal. we went over the documentation site [a pretty helpful tool i can’t wait to use], peer mentoring and a breakdown of our hours.

all in all, i think that retreat made me a lot more excited for the rest of the semester ahead. i’m pretty excited about finishing my own portfolio site and am starting to think about how i will link this site to it [spoiler alert: i did it successfully].

i hope that with the experience i have gained with site building I can help my peers get started and build sites of their own. i can’t wait to learn about more of the digital tools vivello’s use.

⋆˙⟡ steph