[This is a guest post by Celeste Marshall Kahn, an undergraduate at Converse College. She is majoring in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing and is a member of the Converse Nisbet Honors program. Follow her on Twitter at @cellykahn. --@eetempleton]
When Dr. Templeton invited me to attend THATCamp LAC with her, I knew that it would be a great opportunity. But an opportunity for what, exactly, I honestly did not know. My head was full of questions: What are the Digital Humanities? How can this help me? What is an unconference? What are the Digital Humanities, again? I was also concerned because I’m not really what I would call “technologically savvy.” I’m an English major! I read books and write papers! What does this have to do with me? Needless to say, I was both curious and apprehensive. But after perusing the THATCamp LAC website (which you all should do if you haven’t already) I decided to go. Why not take the chance to learn about what’s going on in this new field? Maybe I could get some of my questions answered—or at the very least get some ideas for some research of my own.
When I arrived at THATCamp, sans expectations of any kind, I found that most of my questions were answered with more questions:
- “So what is DH, exactly?”
- “Hmm, how can we best explain DH?”
- “How can DH help me with undergraduate research?”
- “What is real undergraduate research?”
- “How are instructors going to use technology in the classroom?”
- “How can we use technology to enrich the classroom experience for students?”
I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the idea. Apparently all these professors and faculty members had just as many questions as I did! And more importantly, I realized that the unconference is not so much about providing answers as it is about creating a place for dialogue and the sharing of ideas. I wasn’t being talked at by a bunch of people claiming to have the right ideas; I was in the midst of a big conversation about what does, doesn’t and might work and why. Hey! That sounds kind of familiar—isn’t that what Plato called “the dialectic?” I felt like I was a part of what the liberal arts are supposed to be about.
Speaking of dialogue, one of my favorite parts of the unconference was being a part of an “Ask the Undergrads” Q&A session over lunch. There were only a handful of undergraduate students there, so this was a great way for us to be heard. Professors were really interested in what we had to say about tools like Moodle, Blackboard, Livetext, and even SMART Boards. We also got to address the issue that, for non-tech-savvy students like me, is really pertinent: What kinds of assumptions do instructors make about students’ technological literacy? Aha! This was my opportunity to answer a question with a question: “Well, what kinds of assumptions do you make?” For any of you instructors who are reading this, let me just say that you should never assume that a student already knows how to use a tool. But in any event, I enjoyed listening to professors’ concerns and hearing my fellow students give their opinions. What a great opportunity for teachers and students to be upfront about the issues we both face in the classroom! If only there were more opportunities for this kind of exchange.
Now apart from the Q&A session, I often found myself to be the only undergrad student in the room. This meant that I didn’t always have much to say. But that doesn’t mean the experience wasn’t valuable. As I tweeted during the unconference—by the way, my having a Twitter account at all is a result of attending THATCamp—I felt like I was spying. Never before had I been privy to professors’ concerns, apprehensions, questions, and ideas about instruction and scholarship. As someone who is potentially interested in going into academia, it doesn’t get much better than that. And furthermore, it caused me to think about how I can improve my learning as a student!
- How can I shift my focus from the “product” that will get me an A to the process that will teach me to think?
- How can I better articulate my ideas?
- How can I do better research?
- How can I reflect on my own learning and the tools that help me?
This was really cool stuff!
I can’t really say that I came away from my first THATCamp experience with many answers. If anything, I came away with even more questions than I had to begin with…I’m sure I’m not the only participant in that boat! But I did come away with a newfound curiosity about how the Digital Humanities can help small liberal arts colleges change and flourish, and how undergraduates like myself can be a part of that. I want to end by encouraging instructors at these institutions to take an interest in DH and to explore all that THATCamp has to offer
And please, bring your students along!
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