Off to a Running Start!

I feel as if I have officially jumped head first into this semester!  The first week of class proved to be overwhelming as I juggled the beginning of this class and my Hyperlinked Library class, got organized for my first meeting with my site supervisor, worked at my regular job, and did all the other living my life types of things that seem to fill more time that I anticipate.  I know that once I get into the routine (which will hopefully happen in the next few days!), things will begin to feel less stressful and the semester will clip along at a blinding pace.  Here's an update on the past week:

I'm a Google Reader enthusiast!  I have to keep a blog for both this class and my Hyperlinked Library class.  That means I also have loads of new blogs to follow as I keep track of what my classmates are writing about.  I've been using Google Reader for a few years now to keep track of my obsession with cooking blogs.  This past week, I spent a good deal of time adding my classmates' blogs for this semester to my feed and organizing them so that I can remember who is who and what is what.  Now I just need to catch up on reading all of the posts!

At the risk of sounding like a Google advertisement, I also spent a good deal of time creating and organizing Google Docs in my Drive this past week.  When I worked as a student assistant for Pat last spring we used PBworks to organize our files and I really liked having all the information I was working on in one cohesive place.  It made it easy to access from anywhere, easy to organize and easy to share.  I decided to attempt a similar technique with Google Docs for my internship.  I have created a timesheet file, a brainstorming file and a meeting notes file.  I also made a videos folder and I plan to take notes on each old video I watch so that I can then use them to determine the best way to revamp the information for the new videos I'm creating.  At this point, my supervisor has not expressed any interest in seeing all these files, but if she does, it will be really easy just to share the folder with her.

On Saturday morning, I had a Skype meeting with my supervisor for the first time since my interview for the position.  Getting organized before my first meeting with my supervisor was really helpful.  I felt like I had good (and informed) questions to ask and I was able to share with her what I had done so far even if it wasn't a ton.  We determined that I need login rights to the WAS curator website and that I will likely need network access.  This second necessity could prove to be complicated.  Apparently WAS is in the process of revamping everything so my videos will need to demonstrate the new process...which is not yet live online.  The only way to access the new site is on through the network though!  My supervisor thinks I may be able to do this if they create a special hole with my IP address.  I hope it works!  I'm a bit nervous since my IP is not in the States, so I'm crossing my fingers that we can get something worked out. 

So what's on my to-do list for the upcoming week?

1. Use that login information to explore the curator tools on the WAS site and take some notes about what I don't understand (my supervisor will provide me with a thorough explanation of everything soon, but wanted me to explore on my own first).

2. Read all those blog posts that I'm behind on!

Introducing the Intern...

I'm Caitlin and I live in Seoul, Korea.  My undergraduate degree is in Art Education and Art History and I have been lucky enough to spend a good chunk of my teaching career internationally.  Here in Seoul, I teach high school ceramics and general art to middle school students.  Before Korea, I lived in Ecuador and before that I lived in Honduras.  I really love living in Korea (and especially teaching ceramics), but at the moment, I am definitely missing the tropical climate in Honduras!  Growing up in Wisconsin should have me prepared for these freezing temperatures, but my body seems to forget every single year!

I've been hoping to complete a virtual internship ever since learning that a such thing exists!  I know how important it is to have the chance to gain real-world experience (student teaching was key during my undergrad!), but I was worried that I wouldn't have the opportunity because of my location.  I'm excited that that won't be the case though!  This semester, I will be working with the California Digital Library's Web Archiving Service.  They have expressed interest in updating their video tutorials so I will be in charge of creating more user-friendly videos and potentially a more fun "marketing" type of video to promote web archiving.  I'm really excited to get started!