Upon enrolling in this course, I anticipated the technology-based learning but I did not expect creating my own website and online identity. I am not the most “tech-savvy” person in comparison to some of my peers, but learning more about modern technology has always fascinated me. I took elective classes on web-page design and graphic arts in high school so I was a little familiar with the process of creating my own products online. Blogging is not all too new to me either because I have blogged on Tumblr before, but I never wrote my own posts so I found this assignment as a way to expand my knowledge about Internet blogging and building my own online identity. However, I was a little unsure about this assignment of building my own website because I thought it was going to be really complicated and undoable. After completing this assignment, I have gained more understanding about what it takes to build a website.

In particular, I found the step-by-step small assignments very helpful because it made building a website much easier. I found creating my own identity online very interesting because it is a way of writing myself into the world. For example, having my own domain that can easily found through a Google search is fascinating. However, the process of making my of website was challenging at times because I did not have prior experience using Reclaim Hosting or WordPress. Initially, I had a lot of trouble installing WordPress because every time I tried installing the application, the website would immediately prompt me to login over-and-over again. I found this really frustrating because whenever I came close to finish the installation process, I would have to restart from scratch. Also, I signed up for Reclaim Hosting using my Emory email address, so it was frustrating that some emails went to the spam folder instead of the inbox. So, in the future maybe using an Emory email to register is probably not the simplest option.

Despite some of the technical challenges of this assignment, the overall result was very pleasing because I was able to solve a lot of the issues on my own. This was definitely a learning process because I had to expand my technological skills in order to successfully complete my website. I also thought that this assignment was a great way to get a first-hand experience of what a digital humanist does—build. Everyone uses Internet without too many complications, but much fewer people know how to actually build a website. Even though we did not code our own website from scratch, it was still interesting to be on the other side of the Internet, making my own personal blog. Owning and managing a domain is important because it encourages us to present a professional persona ourselves on the Internet. It took some ‘getting used to’ managing my own domain, but after overcoming some minor obstacles, I found it easy to administer my domain. The practice of commenting, posting, and editing regularly definitely forces us to maintain our websites.

In general, I like being able to manage my own personal website and controlling what people see. I have gained a whole new understanding of the cyber world. However, I still think there is more to learn about what a digital humanist does because building a website does not credit us as experts of DH. One suggestion for improving the assignment is giving students options about which plugins are beneficial for making our websites better because I had a hard time finding a plugin that would be useful. Even giving a little more instruction initially would have been beneficial because it took me a couple of hours to figure out how to install a theme to my website. However, majority of the steps of creating our own website were easy enough for even those of us who are not the most tech-savvy of our Digital generation. This assignment had structure, yet we had freedom to personalize our websites to our personal tastes. Knowing how to build is a very important skill in today’s world, so I am pleased that I am capable of building my own website with little complications now. I hope to improve this skill even more as the semester continues.