We have just wrapped up a wonderful week of learning the ins and outs of, experimenting with, and growing community at Grinnell around Domains, and I am so in awe of the engagement of and work done by our fantastic workshop participants as they pulled up their digital sleeves and got to work in their Domains. What a privilege to teach and learn from you this week! And what a privilege to teach with Mo, my co-lead in this workshop, whose extensive Domains experience and thoughtful pedagogical mindset I am so grateful to learn from. Thank you all!

I am also so thankful for the wisdom of our amazing guest speakers, all vanguards in the realm of Domains and collaborative, connected scholarship, teaching, and learning on the Web – a huge thank you to Jim Groom, Alan Levine, Martha Burtis, and Robin DeRosa for teaching us about Domains, sharing your insights and experiences, and leading us in lively conversation about all things Web-related.

We spent time this week thinking in Domains-related metaphors, first using the “Domain as house” metaphor courtesy of Jim Groom (via Richard Scarry), and then the “Domain as Ferrari” as dreamed up by workshop participant Nick Phillips. (Thank you, Nick, for the gift that has kept on giving!) There truly is a vast amount of power under the hood of a domain, and there are so many places you can take it, at whatever speed and with whatever support you might need in driving or keeping that engine running. I look forward to seeing what our workshop participants do with this newfound horsepower, and where their journeys take them – and of course DLAC is here to help out anytime that engine needs a tune-up.

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I always learn so much when teaching, and this week was no exception. The participants and our work together throughout the week taught me so much, from technical details about applications all the way to exciting new ideas for teaching and learning on the Web. I especially appreciated the connections participants were able to make with each other throughout the week: participants who were initially focused on their professional websites came away with ideas for future courses, and participants who came in hoping to make pedagogical plans began work on a professional web presence, with renewed consideration of their digital identities. I have a newly-filled tank – many new considerations, approaches, and cool tech features to carry forward into my own work with Domains, and into DLAC’s work of spreading the good word.

As we move forward from this workshop into a brand-new academic year, I am most excited about continuing to grow our Domains @ Grinnell community. Our participants had many wonderful ideas about how to keep growing this momentum, and we look forward to putting them into practice (lunch and learns! guest speakers! drop-in hours for support!). Especially as we begin another academic year in the shadows of a global pandemic, I look forward to these connections with colleagues and exchanges around how we can use Domains for connecting and collaborating, for playing and messing up, for learning and experimenting – work that fuels me, and work feels all the more important in this current moment.

Best of luck to all as we start our engines for Fall 2021!

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Featured image source: @lamerbrain, Unsplash.