It’s good to be back for another semester of working with the City of Orlando and Greenwood Cemetery to create a digital walking tour that showcases the history of ‘The City Beautiful’ in a way that is accessible to the general public!
This semester will be slightly different from the summer in two ways. First, now that the grant has worked its way through all the proper channels, my work will possibly shift to create what the grant committee and community partners request. I’ve so far been blessed with a lot of autonomy during my time on the project, though I have endeavored all along to anticipate what might be desired, so I’m hopeful that there won’t be too many changes to the basic formatting of the work I’ve been doing. Secondly, since the end of the summer semester, I interviewed candidates for the role of undergrad assistant intern. I was very lucky to have several qualified individuals to choose from and am confident that my choice fits all my requirements. With his help, I know we can accomplish so much more than if I was still going at this alone!
While this week has only just begun, I have already been hard at work preparing for success this semester as I take on the role of supervisor for this internship. I have created a “syllabus” style document for my intern that outlines objectives, and expectations, and provides a schedule to follow. I have also created a shared OneDrive with everything I think he may need, somewhat mirroring a WebCourses classroom.
As the initial grant meeting has yet to occur, for the moment, I will be proceeding as I had last semester to create individual Word formatted documents using a basic Clio layout that can be utilized in a variety of platforms. Last semester, I was able to create a list of over thirty topics, begin researching them, and produce six entries along with a few surveys to gather data on the public’s wants and needs, and my effectiveness at meeting them. I think that creating six well-researched essays is a reasonable expectation for a single person during a single semester, so that is what I will be assigning my intern as well as myself. My hope is that we can produce twelve full tour entries by December. These, with the six already created, and then a further twelve produced in the spring semester should cover the majority of the topics that could be contained in the tour (and additional themed tours) of the cemetery.
I’ve pre-selected the entries that I will assign to my intern, starting with topics that I’ve already done quite a bit of research on and moving toward those I have worked on less. This should allow him to start with the most important component, the writing, and then move on to what we both agree is the more fun part, the research. I’m very excited to see what he comes up with!
I will be meeting with him tomorrow and then with my supervisor, Danielle, sometime later this week. Hopefully, the grant committee and community partner meeting will follow shortly! Next week, there will be a Lunch and Learn event at the Orange County Regional History on Greenwood Cemetery, presented by their education department, that I’m planning to attend. This will be an excellent opportunity to see what the local community of history enthusiasts are interested in and hopefully, I’ll learn a thing or two and have the opportunity to network a bit!
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