Howdy biologists!
Welcome to the all-new Learn Adventurously website! I’ve given it a much-needed makeover, revamping nearly every nook and cranny of the site. In this post, I’m going to dive into the reasons behind this big change, provide a brief history of Learn Adventurously, and offer a glimpse into what’s coming down the road.
TL;DR: Learn Adventurously grew in scope. The old website was hobbled together and slowing down. Needed to replace the plugin for online courses and rebuild the courses from scratch
Major changes:
- New domain name. LearnAdventurously.com now redirects to LearnAdv.com
- Updated course plugin that enables new functionality and improved performance
- Top to bottom redesign of every page
- Dark Mode Toggle
- Redesigned Mastery Checks for the Fundamentals of R for Biologists Course
- Including an all new Final Mastery Check!
- Achievements and points related to Course Completion
- Performance/speed increases across the entire site
A brief history of Learn Adventurously
I spent the start of 2021 alone in a lakeside cabin out in East Texas. Fresh from a breakup and grappling with career uncertainties, I spent that alone time figuring out my next steps. Through the pandemic, I realized how much I genuinely loved creating content. I had done Instagram for years at this point, ran a few live-streamed productions, and been on over a dozen podcasts. I found that I felt genuinely happy when I was focused on the creation process.
But Instagram doesn’t pay the bills.
But neither was Grad school.
It was at this cabin where I decided to form Learn Adventurously. At first, more of a nebulous concept, rather than a business. I wanted to encourage people to explore the natural world with a sense of true adventure. Not learn about it from dusty old textbooks. Not stagnant viewpoints stuck in the past. Not just skimming the surface and learning a few quick facts.
I want to help people feel genuine wonder as they explore the world around them. At the same time, I wanted to show the backend process of HOW biologists see and understand the world around them.
At first, this was just through social media, a blog, and events like our International BioBlitzes or the Virtual Ecology and Evolution Conference. More or less giving people opportunities to, well, Learn Adventurously.
Then, Belize came calling back.
I had worked in Belize since 2018, doing a variety of different ecology-based research, leading research internships at the Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society, and working for various groups that bring students out for educational tours throughout the country.
There I met one of my best friends, Zhawn Poot, a conservation leader in Belize and a tour guide with Belize Zoological Edventures. While working a difficult tour group together, we quickly trauma bonded and stayed in touch. Since then, we kept talking about doing trips together.
Eventually, we made that idea a reality.
In 2022, Learn Adventurously began offering eco-trips to Belize with BZE. These were week-long tours throughout the country that support the diverse conservation efforts in the country and the people who work to make it happen.
I’ll be the first to say that I barely broke even on these trips. Numerous road blocks our of control made these trips incredibly difficult to book. The Omicron variant cropping up the day after we announced our first trip, the War in Ukraine jacking up fuel prices, and, I had 0 experience marketing a trip myself! It’s been a tough road to make those happen!
But we learn from where we failed. We keep moving forward. We try to make it better for the next time.
For me, breaking even was totally acceptable, because it got me back down to Belize to continue my research. In between trips, I was sampling tadpoles, looking for snakes, and tracking the occasional turtle. And in between trips in 2022, I decided to expand Learn Adventurously again.
Sitting in the only office with AC at the research station, I put together the Fundamentals of R for Biologists Textbook and began researching online classes. I knew I was a great teacher, the income is more consistent than ecotourism, and it blends perfectly with my long-term plans around science communication. During my last 2 weeks in Belize, I was basically writing through the day and herping through the night.
Once back stateside, I found out how to get online courses on your own website. I found a course plugin and started recording videos, doing marketing, and released my first course!
From there, it’s been a whirlwind—booking the next Belize trip, refining the online course, and honing the Learn Adventurously toolkit. This journey had me spending endless hours wrestling with WordPress and seeking help from tech support. Then I realized something.
The Learn Adventurously website was trash
What started out as a blog, then was a travel booking website, then was an online course platform, then included a forum, then hosted advanced tools, and the list just kept growing. As well as the number of bandaid plugins, quick fixes, and precariously built pages.
The site was slowing down. I was spending more time fixing random issues, than I was creating new material.
Then I realized something else.
The plugin I used to host the courses was trash.
In fact, most of the issues, quick fixes, and precarious pages were centered around that plugin.
Images randomly breaking. Sending customers multiple invoices. Not enrolling students in the course. Enrolling students in the wrong course. An editor that constantly crashes. Work not being saved. Overwriting old courses with new courses. Realistically a new issue almost every week.
Every time I looked up one of these issues on their tech support forum, I realized how many people had the same issues I was. And getting the support for what should be simple fixes took days or weeks to get resolved. It got to the point, where I stopped advertising my course altogether because I felt uncomfortable accepting money for something that broke so often.
Finally, I had enough. I was presenting at a Turtle Conference when I discovered my Fundamentals of R course randomly had size 10 font that could not be changed. As I submitted my tech support post on their forum, I saw plenty of other people had the same problem. I decided that enough was enough. It was time for a massive overhaul.
Sidenote: I submitted that ticket 2 weeks ago and have heard nothing back. Good riddance
The overhaul
With this overhaul, I decided to start from the ground up. I had been accumulating a list of “things I want to change” and started there.
I wanted to change the domain name. Learn Adventurously is a bit of a mouthful. When typing it out I would often get letters mixed up. I considered rebranding the courses leg of Learn Adventurously into something like LearnBio or EcoEvoOnline. Ultimately, I decided to shorten the URL. LearnAdv.com was available for cheap and meant I could keep all the branding the same!
This also meant I could work on the rebrand on a brand new domain without needing to take down LearnAdventurously.com!
From there, I rebuilt the new website with speed and simplicity in mind. As I rebuild each feature of the old website, I will be creating subdomains and overall improving every component of Learn Adventurously.
Some of the tools from the old site (such as our open access database of open access data) might get their own domain (BioDivSolutions, a side project ive been working on).
With the courses, I had to fundamentally rebuild the entire Fundamentals of R course. After using a new plugin that is already leagues better, I spent the past 4 days copying and pasting every lesson, video, and quiz from the old course into this new plugin. Along the way, I fixed many typos, improved the questions, and even added more content!
All in all, this overhaul was badly needed. I’m sure there will still be issues here and there, but not to the extent that I was having on the prior domain.
Whats Next for Learn Adventurously?
Learn Adventurously is still expanding as a business. The online courses act as the glue between all the various components being developed. Long term, we will offer online courses paired with field training down in Belize (or anywhere really!).
Courses that are a bit less technical in scope are also getting developed. While our first 2 courses: Fundamentals of R and Fundamental Biostatistics are catered for early-mid career biologists, we want our next series of courses to be focused on broader concepts and less technical in nature. Courses like “How does Evolution work?” “How to give a stellar research presentation” “Starting out in Science Communication” “Starting and running a BioBlitz”. Basically, anything related to learning and nature.
We want Learn Adventurously to be broad in scope, but ultimately be a resource for biologists, nature nerds, and environmental enthusiasts of all backgrounds.
The Learn Adventurously Science Communication angle is still being developed. Really, I am trying to figure out how to better divorce it from my own SciComm work. Currently, I have been taking my videos on Youtube and uploading them here with a summarized Blog. What I hope for is that LEAD can expand to include a network of Nature focused Science Communicators. Where we can support their initiatives and inspire others to Learn Adventurously as well.
We have more events over the horizon as well! We skipped our Annual BioBlitz this past spring because I simply did not have the time. Between this business, my Masters degree, and planning for our Belize Trip I unfortunately had to let some things drop to the wayside.
But as with everything in life, its one step at a time.
Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this post! We are constantly building out new Courses and trying to make Learn Adventurously a better product and brand. Thank you for your support. If you want to know more, sign up for email updates!
Thanks, and continue to Learn Adventurously!
-D