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Hi! My name is Sophie Bauder. I've been a LLUf since March of 2018 so I've passed my two year anniversary, which is so exciting! This is my reflection for Distance Lab for my Distance Diary about this past year of LLUFing and also my experience with it in total.
Generally, what keeps me going as a LLUF in terms of interest in learning is often learning new skills or taking on new tasks. I'm definitely someone who is very challenge driven. I think that's what brought me to coding within the Learning Lab and picking up those skills in particular because, not only were they so new to me, but they were such a challenge. You did end up with a deliverable at the end of the day which you could be super proud of, and there were certain steps along the way that you had to fulfill to get there. So it was this, sort of, stage by stage way of learning that almost felt like a competition or game show with myself that kept me super engaged the whole way through. Sort of through this method of learning I've been able to pick up skills in React this semester, in Java Script more in general, in HTML, in CSS, in Python — even coding in working with video clips and videos. All of that has been such a blessing to get to do at the Learning Lab, in part because of the incredible staff and all the other LLUFS who have helped so much with any difficulties — of which I had many as I was learning to code, as anyone who was at the lab while I was working on a project would for sure know.
Something else that the Learning Lab has brought into my life and that I am so grateful for from the perspective of my time as a LLUF is the lesson that you can learn almost as much from teaching as you can from actually attending a workshop or attending a class. I never would have thought that the most I would learn in terms of how to code, for example, would come from the time I spent making tutorials, teaching other beginner coders how to pick up their own skills. That has been such an important lesson! One that I am so grateful for and one that I very much credit the learning lab with teaching me.
One other thing I am so grateful for is just the community and the love that comes from the Bok Center. My standards for work places will forever be so high because of this job and I often say it's one of the very best things to happen to me in college — and that is not an exaggeration. The friendship and support that is present at the Learning Lab is honestly unaparalled in most other spaces — I would hazard to say in the world, not just at Harvard. I would say that, while of course the skills I've picked up are really important at the Lab, so are just the connections that I've made and the people that I've met and the incredible things I've learned from them outside of Photoshop or coding or whatever: how to communicate things you care about, how to meet new people, how to put yourself outside of your comfort zone, and things like that.
All in all, I can safely say that being a LLUF is one of my favorite parts of my college life and I think it will remain that until the day I graduate. I'm so grateful that this semester, despite all of the insane uncertainty and the difficult circumstances, that Bok was able to remain a consistent presence in my life. That was definitely — and I think most LLUFs will say the same — a super important part of the process of adapting to this new reality. I can't express enough how much love I have for the Bok Center and how grateful I am to get to spend so many wonderful hours a week here in the virtual studio or, hopefully, one day again back in the real one.
Hello! So, I have decided to film this without putting a lot of thought into the questions before hand because I want it to be what I think in the moment and just like a genuine answer, so hopefully this won't be a mess!
"What inspires me to learn?" I think I have kind of two answers. One, super generally just in life, I've always thought this and it's the reason I want to teach and the reason why I love the Learning Lab and helping teachers is that I think learning is... my life goal is just to be learning all the time and I think it gives my life purpose. I think that it's because, at the end of the day, when my life ends, not to get super grim but, when my life ends I'm going to look back and think about if I learned every single day and if I knew all these things at the end of the day, then I would know I lived a really really happy life. I feel that way because I think of how we're learning in textbooks now, and I am just like, 'wow, when this was written....' Like, we take these things for granted. We're like, 'oh yea Newton's law,' but like, he had to figure those out! It's one of those things we're he only figured them out because he was going off of what other people had done before him. In order to get to the point where we can advance we first need to understand enough in the field and what's going on so I think learning is the most important thing we do. I don't think we ever stop and I don't think we ever learn just one thing or whatever we major in.
Specifically in my major, I'm super super inspired to learn because when I first learned physics in high school, I just found my way of describing the world. I kept looking for it in English, because that's the obvious one like, you can describe the world in words, or poetry, or art. And I did [find it] in some ways, I feel like I do tell stories with dance and everything, but I feel like when I finally took physics I found a way that made sense to me for describing the world and I thought that was so cool and so different. I think that's what inspires me to keep going. Like, if I'm sitting in a chair and I lean back I know exactly the angle at which I'm going to fall, and it's a silly example but it's stuff like that that [make me] absolutlely love what I do. I think engineering is such a cool way of seeing the world and that's why I, presently as a college student, concentrate in engineering. That's what keeps me motivated every day to learn.
"How do you think your work as a LLUF has evolved?" I think my time as a LLUF has... I'm just a whole different person from when I started, at least I think so. I was definitely the type of person who like, I don't know. I've never really been the "creative" one in my family or even with my friends. I love dance and that's always been my way of expressing myself creatively, but I wasn't the one to edit a video or take a picture. My sister is a graphic designer and she's absolutely incredible, and we just always acknowledge that we are both really talented in very different ways. The Learning Lab has given me this platform to be a beginner and to learn these things. You don't have to be a certain type of person to know these things and to learn about them and to care about them. I genuinely did [care about them], and I still do, and I didn't even know until I got a chance to give it a try.
Now, I'm so proud of myself. If I want to edit something out of a photo I'm like, 'Oh, I know Photoshop!' It's little things like that. I went into the Learning Lab because obviously I love learning and I really want to teach.... And it makes sense. It's not just the Learning Lab because we help other people learn, because we are also constantly learning and that's how we help other people. It's just such a beautiful, amazing, magical, wonderful, inspiring space that I'm so happy and proud to be a part of. Even remotely, even when the physical space isn't there, it's been such a welcoming space and my favorite space on campus! I think I've really grown as a LLUF. I've tried things that I didn't think I would, and I'm really happy with my experience so far, and excited to see where it goes next!
Hi, I'm Kathryn. I'm a junior at Harvard and this video is me reflecting on one year now of being a LLUF.
When I first came in, I had heard about Bok, I had done some work with them through my other clubs. They helped me film a video and I just remember coming into the space and thinking that there was really nothing else like it on campus. I couldn't believe that this building just existed on Church Street and looked like a movie set and an artist's studio just put together. It was such a colorful and vibrant space and people were so full of energy and knew so much about everything! Every single technology and creative form that there was, there seemed to be someone who just really knew what was going on. As someone who, you know, back when I was studying economics for the most part, I didn't really consider myself then to be that much of a creative person, but at the same time I couldn't help but feel that this place was super cool and that everyone that I met that worked there just had amazing things to say and it really just piqued my interest.
Coming in, my first few weeks, it was definitely an interesting experience to gain my grounding. There's so many workshops that I realized just went on, and I hadn't even realized that the Bok Center was helping seminars and they helped classes produce products and assignments with cool media and Adobe tools. I had no idea that this was part of the work that they did, so I was just blown away by the amount of tutorials being produced, and also just by the quality of the content that I was testing. It was all really cool, unique, innovative ways to think about teaching. That was a new concept and a new topic of thinking about how I would want to learn ideally. It was something that I didn't spend that much time thinking about but now after a year of being constantly at the forefront of everything that the Bok community does... I think that has overall enhanced just so much of my academic experience. Honestly, I think that it made me a more creative person.
It definitely helped me gain confidence through doing a bunch of projects in coding, having so many experts in there just on-hand, in the lab. I sort of just slowly made my way into the world of Computer Science. Now, especially after this past semester, starting to work on a lot more Adobe software, sort of piqued my interest in design. This summer, me and a friend are planning to hold each other accountable and we're going to try to build creative portfolios and just see where it takes us. We're going to be seniors and it's now or never to pursue one's passions and so why not?
I've definitely felt that I've been super supported by the Bok Center to learn whatever I want to learn and also just having the ability to welcome the unexpected. One of the tools that now I think is so cool and I've done a decent amount of work in is animation and I don't think I would have ever fallen down that track if I didn't just come in one day and there had been an animation tutorial going on. I sat in and I just found that I really loved the intricacies of animating a walk cycle and just thinking about the human form.... I thought that was so fascinating. And now, cut to, I've done a whole project with Adobe Animate... and I just can't help but hope.
I wish that in my first two years that I had seen more of Bok, and I just honestly wish that all those tutorials, their hackathons, their workshops, could be made even more prevalent throughout the Harvard community because I truly believe that, even if you're not a LLUF, you could totally benefit from doing a workshop here and being exposed and being sort of thrown off. I think that Bok encourages you in the best possible way to get out of your comfort zone and do something unexpected. I think that that tends to bring out the best in me and the best in a lot of students who, you know, are involved with the community. Overall, I would credit Bok with inspiring me to do and pursue a lot of things that I'm passionate about. And I'm very glad about that and very grateful for all the support that I've recieved along the way this past year.
To me, learning has always been tied to my identity. Growing up, my parents always reminded me of the fact that they weren't able to complete schooling. They wanted me, and later on my brother, to take advantage of all the opportunities that we've had at our disposal. For so long, I did that. I internalized a lot of that and used it as a source of motivation to try to improve and achieve, but it wasn't until I got to college that I realized that education and learning could be so much more. It could be personalized, it could be about what you are interested in. And so, I think that from the moment I got to Harvard I realized that I could take courses on these topics that I found so interesting, so compelling, and make education something that I actuallly enjoyed.
In the course of taking classes in education, immigration, the social sciences, I realized that that's where I saw myself. I also found a lot of power in trying to pass on knowledge to others, and so, working at the Learning Lab has been an opportunity to fulfill so many of those goals. Every day, we have the opportunity to work on resoruces for our peers, for faculty, and really improve the learning experience for everyone. That's such a unique experiene that I don't think I can point to at any other place. Working on these projects has been very rewarding, both in that communal sense but also on a personal level as well. I think that I've learned a lot about myself, my interests, and I've been able to develop skills. When I think about those two things together, the Learning Lab has truly been such a magical place for me, and I really am so glad to have been part of it for this past year. When I look back at my four years, one of my few regrets is probably not joining the Learning Lab sooner. I'm very fortunate, and I'm very glad to have been part of the community.
I started working at the Learning Lab this winter, in January, and of course this semester has been a doozy. We got sent home, we had to learn remotely, we had to socialize remotely, and looking back at it, I think one of the things I am most grateful for the chance to do while on campus, but also remotely, has been work at the Learning Lab.
I think one of the things that's most incredible about the Learning Lab and that I've really been learning about myself as I've been working is this idea that you can learn just for learning's sake, and the whole multitudes of joy that that entails. This idea that at the Learning Lab, you're encouraged to learn things that are interesting, to learn things that are hard, to learn things that you never imagined that you would learn, and you're encouraged to learn them in new, exciting, and sometimes terrifying ways. You're encouraged to learn with the help of a staff who want you to learn and you're encouraged on your own and in community, so it's this really beautiful thing. There's so much creativity that's encouraged, you can learn anything and you can learn it in any way! There's also this very self-motivated aspect to it. You get to think, 'What do I want to learn? How do I want to learn it?' Within all of that, there's just this learning for learning's sake and this huge amount of joy that comes out of it.
Working with all of this in the Learning Lab also brings up this question, 'How are the things that I'm learning helping other people?' Of course, the Learning Lab's purpose is so clear. They're helping other people because they help Harvard design better classes, they help people design new assignments that can be creative, they help test these assignments, and it's all through this learning and this excitement and this joy and this self-motivation.
Over this past semester — because I started in the winter when we were back on campus and now, of course, it's a couple months later and we've been home for a while — I have changed the way that I interact with the Learning Lab and the different kinds of things that I was learning. When I first arrived, I was just taking a lot of time, going to lots of different lab meetings, trying to figure out what I wanted to learn, how I wanted to learn it. When you go into your interview, they ask you what tools you want to learn and they give you this whole list that goes on for miles, and I remember researching each of the tools and feeling like I wanted to learn anything, but not knowing what that meant, and not knowing which tool I felt particularly drawn to.
At first, I was doing a lot of exploring and then I chose something that was pretty comfortable for me. I stayed close to home and I decided to work on sewing. I was getting the sewing machine set up, I was getting these puppets which was very exciting, and then almost immediately after I decided to start working on sewing, we got sent home, which was a bummer.
Then, I became part of Distance Lab, like all of the other LLUFs, and Distance Lab was a little different. You had prompts that you were replying to, and the things that you were learning were a little bit more set. Still, you had a lot of freedom: you could propose prompts, you could pitch your projects. But in general, you were working on things that Jordan or Marlon had identified as being particularly useful, and so I was asked to do things that scared me a little bit. I'm specifically thinking about learning Markdown. For whatever reason I've always been terrified of code. I don't know what that says about me as a person, but I've always looked at it and its complicated letters and numbers, and its black screen with the white text, and I've always said, like, 'someone else can do that, I will use the things that they make.' So, when there was a Distance Diary prompt saying, 'We want you to learn how to do this,' I got really scared at first. Then, I tried and messed up and then I tried again, and I feel a lot less scared now. I feel excited. There's something very satisfying about putting your exclamation point and then your parentheses and all of a sudden a picture appears. There's something really incredible about learning something you didn't think you could learn, or learning something that you were scared of learning and you were ready to leave to the side.
Being a part of Distance Lab has encouraged me to try things that, were I at the physical space, I may not have had the courage to step up and give it a shot. I've really, really enjoyed this semester at the Learning Lab, even with all the craziness. The Learning Lab and being able to continue working has been really wonderful and very nice continuity in my life at a time when not a lot is staying the same. I really appreciate all of this time that I've been able to spend here, and I'm very excited for the future when we are able to get back into the physical space, as well as the semester and learning that's ahead.
My time as a LLUF has been a journey of discovery. It has challenged me to think about about what I want to learn, how I learn, and how I teach others. It has encouraged me to think outside of the box and explore new and weird things, sometimes in unconventional ways. Learning HTML and how to code, for example, has been incredible. I didn't realize how little I new about something I use every single day and that I depend on, which is the internet. Writing my first few lines of code, however simple they were, opened me up to an entirely new world and way of thinking.
I remember the concept of Game Lab was also so strange and new to me. Games just didn't seem like something that could be used regularly in the classroom to improve education and learning, but the Learning Lab showed me how empty the traditional classroom could be of fun and creativity and innovation. It showed me how games can truly transform the way we learn and the way we retain things.
I've even broken personal records as well, personal boundaries, to be specific, during my time at the Learning Lab. I came in very fearful of being recorded, and I was just terrified of being in front of a camera. Being able to become comfortable in front of a camera then allowed me to express myself in an entirely new medium, and that was transformative for me, personally.
The best part is that I get to influence my own educational experience, and that of my peers. People have always been most important to me, so being able to influence the welfare and education of my peers gives me so much purpose here in my job at the Learning Lab. The work that we do here even has an impact on prospective students. It shapes the classroom, it shapes the educational experience. Working at the Leaning Lab is important because it reminds me of the most important thing that I'm taking away from my time at Harvard, which is my education.
It also has taught me, and really engrained in me, that an education is more than just knowledge, it is experience. From improving the way that I interact with peers and profesors, to the way that I learn material, to just how I can take my studies outside of the classroom and into different social contacts to teach each other — all of these facets are just at the heart of the Learning Lab and at the heart of what we do.
It reminds me, most of all, that education is the key to success. As a first generation student, I know what challenges life can bring without an education and I also know the doors that can be opened with an education. Being able to be in a position where I can amplify the privileges and the advantages of learning and of an education is wonderful. And no one can take our education away from us. Once we learn how to learn in captivating, efficient, and lasting ways, we can go so far. We become sponges. We are absorbing knowledge and skills and producing new things from what we learn. It's almost like a superpower.
Now, more than ever, education is facing so many challenges, and the Learning Lab and the minds at work in it are crucial to lifting us out of this situation and ushering in what I believe is a new era of education worldwide, a new era of learning that Harvard is pioneering through the Learning Lab. It's this virtual mode of learning, and the fact that we get to be a part of this new movement of this new age is humbling and inspiring. And every day here is exciting and purposeful, and I am incredibly glad, grateful, and proud to be here.
Hi, I'm Julie and I've been a LLUF for only this past semester, but so far it's been a lot of fun. Even though this semester didn't go quite as planned, with getting sent home and everything, I'm really grateful for Distance Lab. Not only does it give me something to do in my free time, but also I've learned so much from it and have gained a lot of valuable experiences and skills. Mainly, working with the Adobe apps was really really cool. Photoshop, After Effects, and Illustrator were the main ones I worked with, and it was just so cool. There's so many different tools within those apps that I had to look up and watch YouTube videos about and it was really awesome. Now I feel really comfortable using them. I told my sister-in-law that we were learning Photoshop and she was like, "Oh my gosh! You have to show me everything you know," because she wants to learn it too.
It's cool that the things we learn are so applicable, not just to the learning environment but so many different contexts. I really appreciated and enjoyed learning about Adobe apps, but also getting my toes dipped in the water of coding with Markdown, that was really cool as well. I don't have much coding experience at all, so it was really awesome to have the chance to be able to do that. I loved working with GitHub and putting in our little GIFs of animals, that was really fun as well.
One of my favorite thigs about the Learning Lab is that you're learning, but at the same time you're doing really cool things, so you don't even realize half the time that you're learning something. I think that's pretty awesome.
One quote that I wanted to share, that has to do with learning, is by Helen Hayes. It basically says, "The expert in anything, was once a beginner." I really appreciate that quote just because you'll see people who are master coders, who are amazing musicians or whatever it is, and you look at them and you're like, 'Oh my goodness, I could never' or 'I wish I could.' It's hard to realize, and I try to realize, that everyone does have to start somewhere. I think that is what's so great about the Learning Lab, as well: there's so much enthusiasm about starting something fresh and jumping into something that you've never done before. It really makes it exciting and it makes me realize that you don't have to be amazing at what you're doing, as long as you're out there doing it and trying. A little progress adds up to something big.
Overall, this semester has been great with the Learning Lab, and I can't wait to see where the next few years take me! I've really enjoyed creating different resources from what I've learned. Yes, I love learning new things, that's what interested me in the Learning Lab to begin with, but I think the best part of the Learning Lab is that you then get to use that new knowledge to create things that will help others. In the end, it makes everything so much sweeter. I'm excited for these next few years and I can't wait to see what Distance Lab is up to next!
There's a quote about learning that really resonates with me. It's by Brian Herbert, and it says, "The capacity to learn is the gift and the ability to learn is a skill. The willingness to learn is a choice." This quote really resonates me, especially in this distance learning environment because I've definitely been having trouble with the 'willingness to learn' part of it. Just having less things to look forward to on the daily has made it difficult to motivate myself to really dedicate to my classes, and that's really where the Learning Lab has come in.
The learning at the Learning Lab is different from the learning I do in class because it feels much more creative and almost more exciting because I get to learn something and immediately apply it and create something that I can see. That has really been a lifeline during this time for me. I've felt like the learning at the Learning Lab has given me a chance to creatively explore and it's made learning fun again, which has been difficult in other aspects of my life, especially classes. I've really appreciated the oppportunities that I have at the Learning Lab.
I've only been at the Learning Lab since February, so I've been here for a pretty short time, and most of it has been in this Distance Lab environment. I think that it's actually helped me become a bigger part of the Learning Lab community during this remote learning time. Everything has felt so accessible, almost, because I feel like we're all on a level playing field. We're all tuning into these Distance Lab Zooms, we're all messaging on Slack, and so this makes me feel like it's a lot easier to contribute. At the physical Learning Lab, it can be difficult to feel a sense of place because there's so much going on always, and so it can be difficult to keep track of. Having this Distance Lab has really helped me focus on a mission and feel like I'm really contributing to it.
Being a LLUF is, without a doubt, the greatest job on campus — maybe even the greatest job in the world. It's kind of hard to put into words what it means to be a LLUF — what it is, what we do, what is happening in the magical space known as the studio — but I think the manifesto really gave me a concise way to describe it next time somebody asks, "what do you do at the Learning Lab?" We learn how to learn. And that is meta, and also just so cool that we get to help create pedagogy and new ways to be in a classroom space that maybe haven't been thought of before, and are especially useful for students who maybe need different learning than the tradtional classroom setting. That's really cool and exciting! Especially for someone like me who is so interested in education.
I just really value my time at the Bok Center, because it just teaches me something new every day. It's really hard to be removed from the physical space of the Bok Center because one of my favorite things that always inspires me is the energy when I step into 50 Church Street. It's just this really palpable excitement about new things and tools and tasks and solving problems. Nobody does that the way that the people at the Bok Center do, and I'm so lucky and honored to be a part of that and to help contribute to that energy (I hope).
Something that really inspires me is a quote that I heard at the Learning Lab last spring. The person who said it to me was Kathryn, who sadly no longer works at the Learning Lab, but while she was there we became very close and she mentored me a lot. One day, I told her I was scared of keeping a notebook because I worried I would waste the notebook. I have all these notebooks and I never use them. I just let all my ideas bounce around in my head and I never record them. She said to me, "Your thoughts belong on paper." And so, I went home and I bought a notebook... and on the first page, I wrote down her advice: "Your thoughts are important enough for paper." And then I have this whole notebook that is almost done, actually. I've never finished an entire notebook. I've kept all these quotes that inspire me or I've created art or written song lyrics or I've just planned my day. It's like a schedule/repository for things that I need to do or goals that I have, and I am so proud of this notebook. That's just the kind of energy that the Bok Center has and that being a LLUF has. It breaks you outside of your mold and teaches you to do something that you were maybe too scared to do before or too intimidated by for some stupid reason in your head, like me, at least. Remembering that my thoughts are important enough for paper, and that it's okay for me to take up space – especially in an academic setting which is hard sometimes as a woman at Harvard in classrooms where I'm usually taught by old men — that is something important to me that I've learned from my time at the Learning Lab. It's not the only thing by a lot, but it's one of the things that stuck with me the most.
How my work and thinking has evolved since I've been a LLUF, I think it's crazy to remember back when I was a freshman and I was too nervous to go into the science center space before my shift started because I didn't want to be early so I was just sitting around. Katie came out and she said, "What are you doing out here?" I was just sitting in a chair in the hallway and I was like, "Oh, my shift hasn't started yet. I'm not on the clock yet so I thought i should wait." And she said, "Don't do that, come inside! Be with us and join this community and learn and have a good time and teach us!" That's the most welcoming environment I've ever felt in a workspace. It's stayed that way and I love it. I hope to be that welcoming for new LLUFs that come in.
I think that I've evolved a lot because I've just grown in my confidence and my ability to speak on topics that I didn't have enough information about coming in and in my ways of thinking. I've grown so much in just my capacity for thought and for problem solving and all of these kind of "buzz words" I guess, but I really mean them. The Bok Center is one of the most consistent things in my time at Harvard, in a place where there's not a lot of consistency. There's a lot of competition, there's a lot of manic energy, there's a lot of pent up aggression and students — and I'm making it sound like a horrible place, but it's not — but the one thing that I am always able to count on, no matter what, [is the Learning Lab]. If I'm having a terrible day I just walk in to the Learning Lab and my whole mood turns around, so thank you guys for that. I could actually cry speaking about how grateful I am to have you guys in my life, especially now that everything's a mess. This is one of the things that keeps me waking up at a regular time, so, thank you guys.
Hello! So I'm recording this as I finish my first year at Harvard and also my first semester of being a LLUF! So this has definitely been an interesting semester for various reasons. For one, I got to join the Learning Lab and everyone working there, and that has been a great experience. On the other hand, there's also online learning and being forced to move back home by the coronavirus and all that stuff. It has been a very interesting and quite trying semester, to be honest.
I think something that inspires me to keep working, though, amidst all the changes and something that keeps me motivated to participate in all my learning and do the best that I can, given Pass/Fail grading and the general difficulties that come with having to learn in a smaller space and having different responsibilities and things like that, I think something that keeps me motivated to do that have been my classes, particularly my smaller, seminar-style classes. In the classes where I've felt I've developed a relationship with my professor, I'm really more likely to keep working as hard as I absolutely can given the circumstances. There's a level of community there and a connection you want to uphold, and some unwritten contract that underlies that. I think that's been incredibly helpful, just with smaller classes where Zoom meetings mean we can actually talk to the professor and interact with them, which has been super helpful. Of course, this isn't possible for bigger lecture-style classes. Both of my [lecture classes] are asynchronous... so it's just me watching a video for like an hour and a half, which isn't super engaging. I think the seminars and those professors have been really great at keeping me going.
Something else that has kept me really motivated is the Bok Center and working as a LLUF. I think my work as a LLUF has definitely evolved from where I started. Since I started this semester, it was just a lot of getting used ti things in the beginning and getting used to the physical space, and learning what are the things I could do to be helpful and what being a LLUF even means — what it means for me to try out these different tools or resources or to go to Animation Lab every Thursday and learn to animate.
Now, just as soon as I was getting used to that physical space and meeting people, we were shifted to this completely different environment, but I think the shift hasn't been too rough. It's been pretty great how the Learning Lab organized it because I feel there's still that connection there with our weekly Distance Lab meetings and stuff.
My work has definitely grown, though. The things I've done for the Learning Lab have definitely changed. Now, I'm working a bit more independently. Making resource guides or practicing tools or tutorials — most of that is done on my own now, rather than doing it in a physical space with everyone else where someone is working on something and you can maybe join them or they can help you with your work. That's definitely been different. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but you do miss out on that community that comes from working on something with people. I think it could even be great for the Learning Lab to bring back pods, which I wasn't a part of but I know they had them in first semester. I think that could be something to keep remote learning, or remote LLUFing, a little bit more together.
It's been really great to have a couple hours [with the Learning Lab] where I can be creative and try new resources, or take it on myself to make a resource guide. For example, I made one on Markdown platforms. I did not know anything about Markdown but I took the time to learn as much as I could about it and then help other people learn as much as they can about it, which was really great!
So yeah, I think those are the ways that my work with the Bok Center has evolved. I think it has been such a beneficial experience for this semester, and every semester going forward hopefully!