<commit_before>---
layout: post
title:  "Episode 008: <NAME>"
date:   2016-11-21
excerpt: "<NAME> is a doctoral student in history at Vanderbilt University."
episode: true
tag:
- digital humanities
- Twitter
- blended learning
comments: true
---

In this episode, we feature an interview with <NAME>, a sixth-year doctoral student in history at Vanderbilt University. Zoe studies networks, ideas, and spaces in modern history, and her dissertation examines the role of Cairo, Egypt, as a hub for anti-colonial activism in Africa during the Cold War. Zoe has been a graduate fellow at the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching, the Vanderbilt Institute for Digital Learning, and at the Vanderbilt Center for Digital Humanities. She helped launch a “Conversations on Digital Pedagogy” series at Vanderbilt, and continues to build and enrich the digital humanities community at Vanderbilt and elsewhere. We talked with Zoe about her experiments in digital pedagogy, her approach to using educational technology, and her career path as an aspiring digital historian.

Links:

* [Zoe LeBlanc's website](http://zoeleblanc.com/)
* [@zoe_leblanc](https://twitter.com/zoe_leblanc) on Twitter
* [HASTAC](https://www.hastac.org/)
* [HASTAC at Vanderbilt](https://my.vanderbilt.edu/digitalhumanities/hastac-scholars/)
* [Vanderbilt Center for Digital Humanities](https://my.vanderbilt.edu/digitalhumanities/)
* [Twitter in the Classroom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_WwQChezJA), a Conversation on Digital Pedagogy

<iframe width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/293662600&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true"></iframe><commit_msg>Added transcript for Episode 8<commit_after>---
layout: post
title:  "Episode 008: <NAME>"
date:   2016-11-21
excerpt: "<NAME> is a doctoral student in history at Vanderbilt University."
episode: true
tag:
- digital humanities
- Twitter
- blended learning
comments: true
---

In this episode, we feature an interview with <NAME>, a sixth-year doctoral student in history at Vanderbilt University. Zoe studies networks, ideas, and spaces in modern history, and her dissertation examines the role of Cairo, Egypt, as a hub for anti-colonial activism in Africa during the Cold War. Zoe has been a graduate fellow at the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching, the Vanderbilt Institute for Digital Learning, and at the Vanderbilt Center for Digital Humanities. She helped launch a “Conversations on Digital Pedagogy” series at Vanderbilt, and continues to build and enrich the digital humanities community at Vanderbilt and elsewhere. We talked with Zoe about her experiments in digital pedagogy, her approach to using educational technology, and her career path as an aspiring digital historian.

Links:

* [Zoe LeBlanc's website](http://zoeleblanc.com/)
* [@zoe_leblanc](https://twitter.com/zoe_leblanc) on Twitter
* [HASTAC](https://www.hastac.org/)
* [HASTAC at Vanderbilt](https://my.vanderbilt.edu/digitalhumanities/hastac-scholars/)
* [Vanderbilt Center for Digital Humanities](https://my.vanderbilt.edu/digitalhumanities/)
* [Twitter in the Classroom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_WwQChezJA), a Conversation on Digital Pedagogy

<iframe width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/293662600&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true"></iframe>

## Episode 8: Z<NAME>

 [00:00] [background music]

**<NAME>**:  [00:05] Welcome to "Leading Lines," a podcast from
Vanderbilt University. I'm your host, <NAME>, Director of the
Vanderbilt Center for Teaching. In this podcast we explore creative,
intentional, and effective uses of technology to enhance student
learning. Uses that point the way to the future of educational
technology in college and university settings.

[00:22] In this episode I'm very happy to share an interview with <NAME>, a six‑year doctoral student in History here at Vanderbilt
University. Zoe studies networks, ideas, and spaces in modern history,
and her dissertation examines the role of Cairo as a hub for
anticolonial activism in Africa during the Cold War.

[00:40] I met Zoe back in 2011 or 2012, when she became the Center for
Teaching's first HASTAC caller. HASTAC is a network of academics
exploring the intersection of teaching, scholarship, and technology. I
remember having a series of really fascinating conversations with Zoe
that year, as we explored, together, ways to bring the digital into our
teaching.

[00:58] The following year, Zoe was a fellow at the Vanderbilt
Institute for Digital Learning, where she continued her explorations of
educational technology and helped launch a "Conversations on Digital
Pedagogy" series that's still going strong. This year, Zoe is a fellow
at Vanderbilt's new Center for Digital Humanities and she continues to
build and enrich the Digital Humanities community at Vanderbilt.

[01:18] I spoke with Zoe this summer, shortly after she arrived back
on campus from one of her mini‑trips to overseas archives. We talked
about her experiments in digital pedagogy, her approach to using
educational technology, and her career path as an aspiring digital
historian.

[01:32] [background music]

**Derek**:  [01:35] Zoe, thanks for talking with me today. Can we
start by having you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about
your doctoral research?

**<NAME>**:  [01:43] Thank you for having me, Derek. As you know,
I've always been a big fan of your work and the CFTs. It was pretty
instrumental the time I joined you guys in 2012 as a HASTAC scholar.
Since many moons ago, I've been working on my dissertation, but also
taking the stuff I've learned from the CFTs.

[02:04] I'm a doctoral student in the History department and I'm going
into my sixth year in the fall. I look at international anti‑colonial
movements, but through the lens of Cairo in the '50s and '60s and try to
map both the discourses, but also networks that underlie this really
brief moment of anti‑colonial idealism that shaped the immediate
decolonization moment.

[02:30] That's what I spend a lot of my research time doing. Yeah, I
have spent the last few years going to archives and just taking
thousands and thousands of images...

[02:43] [laughter]

**Zoe**:  [02:44] that now sit on my hard drive. That I'm now
currently going through. That's where I'm at, at the moment.

**Derek**:  [02:51] You mentioned going to archives. I'm grateful that
we have a chance to talk, because often when I ask to meet with you, you
are in some other far part of the world.

**Zoe**:  [02:59] I was telling you, the first time I've been in
Nashville in the summer, kind of mixed feelings. I was really excited
about it, and then the weather happened.

[03:07] [laughter]

**Zoe**:  [03:08] Now, I'm like, "Oh, maybe it was nice traveling."
[laughs]

**Derek**:  [03:13] Tell us, also, a little bit about your teaching
experience here at Vanderbilt.

**Zoe**:  [03:18] I've taught now four semesters in the History
Department. We're TAs there, but we also get to lead discussion
sections. I've taught a whole slew of courses, mostly focused on modern
historical topics, Cold War history. I did do a class on the Arab
Spring, which was a lot of fun, and then I did a bit of an outlier class
with the chancellor, actually.

[03:43] We taught the Federalist papers together, which was a really
fun, almost introduction to constitutional law course. Of course, at the
time I was teaching it, Hamilton, the musical, came out, which was super
exciting. I'm kicking myself that we didn't go on a class field trip to
New York.

[04:01] I've mostly been leading discussion sections and trying to
work with students to help them understand complex historical topics and
learn what thinking historically is, how to do research, how to write,
those kind of things.

**Derek**:  [04:19] Mostly undergraduates?

**Zoe**:  [04:20] Yes, all undergraduates.

**Derek**:  [04:22] All undergraduates.

**Zoe**:  [04:23] Although I've been surprised at Vanderbilt, a lot of
my students are from the sciences or med streams. A lot of medicine,
health, and society, econ and politics, really across the board, which
is really cool.

**Derek**:  [04:39] I've always thought it was pretty neat that our
chancellor teaches regularly. Teaches undergraduates.

**Zoe**:  [04:44] I definitely learned a lot from him. That course was
just...it's a very intense. It's a three‑hour seminar where we read
about 10 pages of the Federalist papers, the close, close reading model.
The students really loved it, so it was awesome.

**Derek**:  [05:02] I want to talk more about your teaching, but first
I want to step back just a little bit. You've been very active in the
digital humanities community here at Vanderbilt. You mentioned your
experience as a HASTAC Scholar a few years ago, but I know you've been
involved in lots of other ways here at Vanderbilt, and really beyond.

[05:21] How would you define that term, digital humanities, for
someone who's not familiar with it?

**Zoe**:  [05:27] [laughs] This is such a great question. I always
joke with people outside of Academia, that when I say, "Digital
Humanities," its Humanities professors discovered computers in Westlake.
This might be something.

[05:41] I do actually think it's a lot more than that. It really can
mean a lot of different things to a lot of different peoples. To me it
really means meaningfully integrating digital tools, digital
infrastructure into our research and teaching. Then also looking back at
those things critically and applying the same type of scholarly analysis
that we do to all other spheres of our lives.

[06:08] For some people, that means really going heavy on the digital
pedagogy which I see as though...I don't know the gateway drug into
digital drug humanities. I feel like everybody so tough with their
teaching. At least for me being the HASTAC scholar, it made a lot of
sense.

[06:24] As you go further, you're like, "Maybe this might help for my
research as well." Then you start thinking about, "Well, who's making
these tools?" Or like, "Where are they coming from?" Then, "What is this
infrastructure that I'm even using?" Those questions.

[06:38] That for me is how I've both experience, but also define
Digital Humanities. Just taking what we see as a critical analysis of
humanities and trying to both integrate digital into that, but also use
that as a lens to critique these structures and think about them
thoughtfully.

**Derek**:  [07:02] You mention HASTAC a couple of times, but I don't
think we'd settle what that is. Can you say a little bit about...I don't
know what the acronym...Can you help me remember that?

**Zoe**:  [07:10] Yeah, I know it is. [laughs] . It's really the
worse. It's a great short term. I think it's Humanities, Arts, Science,
Technology Advanced Collaboratory. It ends on Collaboratory, which...it
is a weird word to end on. [chuckles] That's a program that I think
you guys started in 2011 here at Vanderbilt with Corey.

**Derek**:  [07:30] That's when we joined the national program, yeah.

**Zoe**:  [07:32] Right, yeah, but it's this huge international
program now that links Digital Humanities...a very broad sense of
Digital Humanities. You have people coming from media studies, you even
have some camp site people, I think.

[07:46] Just to bring them together in this virtual space to blog and
share ideas and have a critical forum. Then they do this great
conference every year that Vanderbilt's now sending two panels to a
year. We got...

[08:00] [crosstalk]

**Zoe**:  [08:00] Yeah, a whole little entourage but it's a really
great conference to go to. It was actually the first conference I went
to, it's in Toronto. It is so different than the normal conferences.
It's so much more laid back but also people really engaged in it.

[08:16] Not to dismiss other conferences, but there's a tendency and I
think a lot of academic conferences that people skip the panels or
things like this. At HASTAC, I feel that people really went to go engage
and then you have the Twitter back channel, which is awesome. That was a
great experience for me and now it's turn into this whole network on
campus, which is awesome.

**Derek**:  [08:39] Yeah. We had maybe 10 HASTACs scholars these past
few years, sponsored by different centers who are in campus. It's a
pretty cool...I thought in a nice way to jump start our Digital
Humanities community here, and to have people from around campus and
different departments and different centers, meet each other, and
interact, and find common interests.

**Zoe**:  [09:00] I'm actually going to be one of the Digital
Humanities grad fellows next year at the new Digital Humanities center
that's opening...

**Derek**:  [09:07] You heard that. Congratulations.

**Zoe**:  [09:09] Yeah, thank you. I'm super excited. When I saw that
I was like, "I need this." I'm getting close to ending. It's silly to do
this at this time but I was, like you said before, I've spent a lot of
time on this. I've gone to a lot of other places to learn about this.
I've tried to build the network that I talk to people in this. It's very
exciting to have found a home for all of this to live.

[09:32] Vanderbilt's really grown in the last few years in terms of
people interested, but I think we've just been missing through the
infrastructure to help people take it to the next level, especially
going to conferences and stuff like that.

[09:43] It's hard to get funding for these things or buying a new
computer, these things where I've had to invest them that in my own. I'm
very excited to see what this new center is and hopefully, yeah, becomes
another hub than the network, another node.

**Derek**:  [10:03] Let's talk a little bit about teaching. I've got
more questions about you're on professional development and your career
and all that, but...

**Zoe**:  [10:10] So do I.

[10:14] [laughter]

**Derek**:  [10:14] Looking back on some of your teaching experiences,
what are some ways that you've used technology to enhance the learning
experience of your students?

**Zoe**:  [10:22] The way I got into it was both HASTAC, but then also
just being very frightened by blackboard. [laughs] You're changing but
in the past, it was such a horrible tool. For me, the immediate thing
became, "OK, I don't want to use this virtual space. I don't feel like
this a great way for my students to understand the course and to share
materials."

[10:46] The first thing I did was build the course website and that
for...Gosh, what was it? It was for my history of modern Middle East‑US
relations. From there, I started thinking about, "OK, how can we collect
materials. How can we share them and expand the classroom outside of the
walls? Continue the conversation?"

[11:13] In some ways you're just always struggling in class. How much
content can you go over? Where it really came together was the course I
taught on the Arab Spring. That was a really exciting one because,
obviously, the Arab Spring itself, was almost a digitally‑born event.

[11:28] You can't really understand it without using digital tools.
For that course, I took a lot of what I had learned in the previous
courses and tried to integrate digital from the get‑go. A lot of people
see EdTech, or digital tools, or digital learning as a one week in the
course like the way you send your students to the library for one of the
course meetings to learn what research is.

[11:53] We all know that that's really...it's a nice gesture but it
doesn't integrate it enough. What I did was I had this pretty robust
WordPress site, but then I also had the students on Twitter and we had a
whole back channel around the classroom hashtag. I, also, had Pinterest
boards going and tried to really get them to start finding materials
from elsewhere, and sharing it, and having a discussion.

[12:19] Twitter was also great because I got them to do their reading
responses there, which was helpful aide to make sure they did their
readings. Also, helpful to just see what readings were working and which
ones weren't. It's always that awkward moment in a discussion section
when you can tell nobody's done that particular reading.

[12:37] You want to sit through the silence, but it's also like we've
have an hour. Do I want to fight you on this or not? Especially the Arab
Spring, we were going through country after country and most of these
students, this was their only course in history, let alone Middle
Eastern or North African histories.

[12:54] It was really about trying to get them to start doing their
own research and start seeing how these digital spaces could be both
research sources like primary sources, but then also things that are
ongoing. One of the great things, I've told you this story before. The
students were using hashtags and this one student...we were doing a week
on Saudi Arabia and Islam.

[13:21] He tweeted about the Prophet but hashtagged his name and that
tweet went viral around Islamist circles in Saudi Arabia, which was a
really exciting experience. It was a great teaching moment because it
was, "Look, these are really communities out there. This is not some
cloister discussion we're having in the classroom." It also brought up a
lot of privacy questions though that I hadn't thought...

**Derek**:  [13:45] Do you remember how many retweets it got? Was
it...

**Zoe**:  [13:47] I could pull it up.

**Derek**:  [13:48] dozens or hundreds?

**Zoe**:  [13:49] At the time, the class was so insular. It felt like
it was thousands but it was probably maybe 50 or something. It was a lot
more than anything else from the class got though.

**Derek**:  [14:02] Sure, that's still a lot of actual eyeballs on
that tweet.

**Zoe**:  [14:05] Right. A very particular community, when every
Twitter profile is a sheikh with a beard, it's very noticeable about who
is looking in. I thought that was really great, but at the same time,
brought up these questions for me about, "OK, what is the line between
public and private?"

[14:28] I fall to the side of I really want students to produce
publicly because as much as it's important to have space to share ideas
and work through them, it's also important to be accountable. I also
want to leave them space to maybe not share as much. For example, they
could make a Twitter account with not their public name. That's what a
lot of people have come to.

[14:54] Vivian's work on Twitter and the German experiments she did in
her class with collaborative fiction writing, there's...

**Derek**:  [15:01] This is <NAME> who's now an assistant
director here at the Center for Teaching.

**Zoe**:  [15:05] Yeah, it's such a fantastic...I would love to push
Twitter further that way. The one week that I did let it go a bit broke
was when I told them they had to retweet and reply to each other at
least four times. I could barely keep up with the stream.

[15:21] It just went out of control, but then it was, "Is this what I
want or not? It's great they're having these discussions, but at the
same time, how much control do you give up? I really like these moments
because it really makes you think consciously about how you're teaching,
and the kind of choices you're making, and makes them much more
transparent than normally happens.

**Derek**:  [15:47] I have several follow up questions.

**Zoe**:  [15:48] Yeah. Sorry, that was a bit long.

**Derek**:  [15:49] Let me unwind this a little bit. You said you had
one week where you asked them to retweet and reply to each other. Prior
to that, had that largely been tweeting out but not talking to each
other?

**Zoe**:  [16:02] Yeah, there was a few that clearly...there was a lot
of pushback to using Twitter which was surprising to me. There's a lot
of people that were new to it, didn't really understand how it worked. I
would definitely, in hindsight, do an early, "This is how Twitter
works."

[16:19] I definitely assumed too much knowledge this whole myth of
digital natives, and so...

**Derek**:  [16:25] [laughs] Following <NAME> on Twitter is
not the same as engaging in academic conversations on Twitter.

**Zoe**:  [16:30] Exactly. Right. Making them rethink this as a tool
that you can use for scholarly discussions. A few of them would tweet
out articles beforehand or like each other's or sometimes reply, but it
wasn't a very robust discussion. That week, where I did tell them to
engage with each other, then it just took off.

[16:52] It was really cool but it was...it's so hard because
especially, sometimes, on topics like this, people can have opinions
that are not necessarily based on scholarly material. This is current
politics, essentially. It's tough to want to allow them to express
themselves, but then also want them to be more thoughtful and nuanced.

[17:14] That's where everybody's had that moment in discussion section
where it's, "Do I let them keep talking or do I step in?" On Twitter, it
got an exponential version of that because how do you even step in? You
can't be, "Stop." [laughs] "Pause button." [laughs] "That's enough."

**Derek**:  [17:34] Did you start to intervene or did you tend to hold
back and let them run the conversation?

**Zoe**:  [17:40] I really wanted them to run the conversation. On
something like this, they tended to look at me as such an expert that
it, sometimes, would shut down conversations or they were looking for
recognition on Twitter like, "Oh, she liked mine," That means it's a
point or something? I don't know.

[17:58] They interpret this in interesting ways. I really wanted it to
be more of an organic discussion. This also happened towards the end of
the semester. After that, we had papers. It was an experiment left
unfinished essentially but it was interesting.

**Derek**:  [18:16] The student whose tweet went viral, after that
happened, what did you do either outside of class or during class to
help process that with your students?

**Zoe**:  [18:28] [laughs] Probably not as much as I should have at
the time. I made a grimace when I noticed like, "I should have thought
this more thoughtfully." I definitely started looking more at what
people were doing with Twitter.

[18:42] I looked at previous stuff through hashtag but around that
time, people were starting to nuance much more their approach to Twitter
as a tool in the classroom and as a space for the classroom. For that
student in particular, it was more of just a cool thing.

[19:00] I tried to get them to think about, "OK, this is an actual
community." A lot of this course was just getting them to realize that
there was real people in this part of the world, that a lot of them the
same age as them and going through very different life experiences.
Trying to get them to empathize. It was more a good teaching moment for
making that connection.

[19:21] In hindsight, I would definitely try and think through more
about getting them to understand what a hashtag does and what type of
communities that links you into and thinking more thoughtfully about, in
advance of the course, which hashtags should I tell them might...because
it would be fun for them to experiment even, but I want it to be an
intentional choice. I don't want it to be happenstance or haphazard.

[19:46] About the privacy stuff, a lot of this stuff is developing as
we go forth. The university in terms of their policies on privacy, like,
"Who owns this data?" Also, students realizing, "Is this my professional
identity online?"

[20:00] This is something even I struggle with. What do you post
online? Do you have a different Twitter account? Because in some ways,
the nice thing about this is you can show that I was actually engaged in
this later down the road potentially, but that's also having the
foresight to know where you might be down the road.

**Derek**:  [20:19] Those are tough calls. Honestly, I'm still working
through in many ways. I have a professional Twitter account, and then I
have a personal Twitter account. If I want to tweet about my kids or
about whatever TV show I'm watching, I do that on my personal Twitter
account. No one really cares but it's fun. I know a few people there and
that's fine.

[20:37] I try to keep that separately, but sometimes I wonder, am I
being a little too artificial? These are real walls in my life. It's an
ongoing debate in my head as to how to talk about some things and where
to talk about things.

**Zoe**:  [20:56] Exactly, especially college‑age students. They're
living these things so much and it's social space for them. For them to
understand that these can also be professional scholarly spaces is
incredibly important because down the road, it might hurt them if
they've not thought about this, but at the same time, you don't want
them to...I don't know.

[21:16] There's something about being honest and authentic online that
can actually be very helpful, too, as a creative process. It is a weird
line to struggle.

**Derek**:  [21:26] What I hear often is a risk‑averse approach, which
says, "Don't put anything online. Don't put yourself out there. Keep it
private. Keep it locked down because you don't want to say something
that's going to get you in trouble later."

[21:42] There is another way of looking at it that says that if you're
not online and you're a professional and you're not engaged in scholarly
or academic or professional communities, what does that say about you?
Why aren't you there? I don't think the right answer is to always shut
down and lock down but to be really intentional about what you put out
there and how you represent yourself.

**Zoe**:  [22:06] One thing I would have loved to do with the class
that we didn't do was to have blog posts online. This is coming from
your work with the cryptography class that you do, because I really
think helping students understand that writing is a process and
researching is a process is helpful when it's online.

[22:22] You can go back and look at that and make changes to it and
work in a more public space because as scholars, we sit on stuff for so
long. Getting an article out, it takes years. It's such a weird way for
knowledge to flow in this day and age. Showing the students there is
that model, there is that very scholarly traditional model...not
traditional.

[22:46] There is that way to communicate information. There is also a
way you can do it more publicly and openly but still be smart about it,
but also realize there is a process and there is a benefit from sharing
these things. You can see how your thoughts change over time. I go back
and look at blog posts that I wrote, and I'm like, "Oh, my gosh! I could
just take this down. This is horrible."

[23:09] At the same time, it's nice to see that, "Oh, we were really
trying to grapple with these issues." That will have to wait for a
future course. I don't know. I might be teeing this well. We'll see.
We're still waiting on the news.

**Derek**:  [23:24] If you're in the country. [laughs]

**Zoe**:  [23:25] I'm definitely in the country now. The traveling is
done. I'm grounded.

**Derek**:  [23:30] You're grounded.

**Zoe**:  [23:32] Yeah.

[23:32] [laughter]

**Derek**:  [23:36] We've touched on this already a little bit, but as
you think about technologies that you want to experiment with or adopt
in your teaching, what are some principles you keep in mind? How do you
make those decisions about what to try or what to use?

**Zoe**:  [23:50] There's a few different things that I really look
for. One is that if I'm going to use this, there has to be a rationale.
The big critique that a lot of digital humanities gets, digital
teaching, is that it's all flash, no substance.

[24:07] That's really the case but people don't spend the time
thinking about the rationale enough. That needs to be front and center
about, "What are the benefits to the students? What are the benefits to
the classroom? How is this helping me achieve X goals?"

[24:21] I also look for stuff that is a platform or a tool. I don't
want to be paying for things. I want things to be free. I want it to be
sustainable as much as possible. It's a very frustrating thing to spend
all this time teaching the students to use something that a year from
now might not be available or is not going to be accessible.

[24:46] I'm definitely trying to look at teaching them principles of
how to evaluate the tools they're using and looking at what is the
difference between the data and sources we're using versus these tools,
to analyze and maybe visualize them.

[25:06] Lastly, this is a pet peeve of mine, just like design. An ugly
website just kills me. I want to throw my phone at the wall. It doesn't
do it for me. Just trying to find tools that really let you do what you
want with them, that have enough flexibility, and also have some eye to
design.

[25:34] I really see it in the same way of research and teaching. They
are so iterative. Design in digital teaching or humanities, you really
can't have one without the other. That's a pet peeve of mine. I just
don't like tools that are really poorly designed. They don't work well
usually, anyway, so why would you use them?

**Derek**:  [25:56] Are there other tools that you've either used or
you find really interesting that you're thinking about using at some
point in time?

**Zoe**:  [26:03] You know me. I'm like a "Shiny object" person. I
want to try them all. For history, obviously, there's a lot of mapping.
When you did the timelines this year as well, that, too, I would
definitely integrate.

[26:20] The fun thing with those is oftentimes, the end point you get
to is...not that it isn't great to use them, but you often end up with
actually pretty robust critique of what you've created, which I actually
like to end at that point, because it helps the students see these
things not as flat or uncritical tools or websites or whatever form they
come in but something that all sorts of interpretive choices went into.
That's really great.

[26:47] I'd like to do some Wikipedia more, just because my students
use it so uncritically. Just getting them to realize how constructed
that is would be really cool. I'd also love to get into...I may even try
to integrate this, but some of the augmented reality or maybe 3D
printing, microprocessor, computing stuff, a lot of the maker culture
would be really cool.

[27:14] History is such a text‑based discipline. The weird thing is a
lot of our sources can be film, can be pictures, can be radio. All of
these different mediums...

**Derek**:  [27:24] Sure, objects.

**Zoe**:  [27:25] Right, exactly. Trying to integrate that more and
push the students' understanding of what is historical or not, and also
give them a chance to create as well. A lot of what I've thought about
has come from listening to you talk to those students as producers.

[27:42] I really like that idea not for closing where the end point is
on a project but letting them have some creativity and learn some skills
that is really going to be helpful. It's a tough balance between content
and skills. We all struggle with that, but I do think there could be a
little more experimentation in the history classroom.

[28:03] That's where I'm really at, of wanting to try and push the
boundaries and see what's possible. Of course, I'm still teeing
[laughs] so there's a limit to what I can do. These poor students
already have so many courses going on. Hopefully, if a Digital
Humanities course going in history, that would be a really fun place to
blend, looking at these methods with also trying them out and
understanding them.

**Derek**:  [28:33] Looking ahead to your own career, you said you're
rolling into your sixth year. You're getting close to finishing...

**Zoe**:  [28:38] The end is nigh, hopefully. I don't know.

[28:41] [laughter]

**Zoe**:  [28:41] It feels like there's a lot of writing to do.

[28:43] [laughter]

**Derek**:  [28:43] There is still lots to do, I get that. As you
think about possible next steps for you after you defend, what roles do
you see technology play in your teaching, in your research, in a
professional development?

**Zoe**:  [28:58] Pretty central. Right now, this is a bit of a
spoiler alert. I actually just started at the Nashville Software School
in their Part‑Time Web Developer Bootcamp. I'm spending the next year
learning how to be a Web developer because for me, I really came down to
where do you fall on this at tech divide?

[29:17] Are you someone that might be getting the grants and helping
other people build the tools? Are you interested in building the tools
yourself? It turned out that I'm just crazy enough to think I can build
these things. [laughs]

[29:30] What I would like to see in my career is definitely continue
in the digital humanities in some form or another, maybe as a professor,
maybe as a staff member, but really starting to build more tools for our
community.

[29:43] A lot of the tools we have are really re‑purposed from other,
not less savory context, but there's a lot of ways where we use...the
way we create and understand knowledge is not the same as like someone
who is looking for business insights or any of these big data companies.

[30:04] I would really love to build new research tools and hopefully,
expand how we integrate digital tools. I feel like in some ways, we're
almost in the early dot‑com boom of digital humanities, where there is a
lot of promise. We're still trying to catch up there.

[30:24] We will get there eventually, but right now the frustrating
thing for a lot of people is the limitations in these tools and the way
they were designed, the fact that you either have to spend so much money
to get access or you can't share things.

[30:39] My big beef is that historians do not share archival data
really well, which I've just spent the last few years having to travel
to these archives and sitting next to people taking picture after
picture. It's just like, "Why aren't we sharing these things?" It seems
like a really weird inefficiency if these are all in some digital form.

[30:57] Just trying to integrate more thoughtfully the digital already
into how we work and then from there, try and see what type of research
we can do, and see what type of questions. There's a great...<NAME>. This is historian who has a great blog.

[31:14] He's historying, like the verb. I don't... [laughs]

[31:18] [crosstalk]

**Zoe**:  [31:19] On twitter but he has this great thing about the
promise of digital humanities and about how a lot of people have been
really excited for this, but haven't really gone the next step of really
integrating it and pushing forward research boundaries or trying to push
for new avenues.

[31:37] That still needs to be done. The hard thing is we're captives
to our own claims of what this can do, but then we have to actually show
that and push it forward. That's where I'd like to be. Right now, the
job market is so interesting for academics and historians. I would love
still to teach and do that.

[32:00] We could touch on a whole set of issues that I'm sure you
could talk about. About being at a center but not necessarily the weird
dual stream where you have like an appointment in the department or
you're teaching a department, but you're based at a center and what that
means for your ability in a campus to enact change...

**Derek**:  [32:19] Whether you're faculty, whether you're staff, and
what those implications are.

**Zoe**:  [32:23] Right. Right. Also, ownership of IP and stuff like
this. This is something where, now, that I'm starting to build things,
is a very different way of thinking about my output, and the value of
it, and its relationship to the university. That's a whole...another
podcast.

[32:41] [laughter]

**Zoe**:  [32:42] A second podcast. That's where I'm at right now.
Hopefully I'll finish in the next year or two. I'm lucky enough to not
have a gun to my head with the funding situation. Now, I'm actually
starting to integrate more text manning and mapping tools into my
dissertation just to deal with the sheer amount of data I have. I'm also
excited to see what kind of research [inaudible] side of that.

**Derek**:  [33:10] Yeah?

**Zoe**:  [33:10] Yeah.

**Derek**:  [33:12] We have one question we ask all of our guests.
What's your favorite analog educational technology?

**Zoe**:  [33:20] Oh, man. I was telling you earlier, it's so funny
because we treat analog as just, "That's the natural classroom. This
is how it's looked for eons." [laughs] This is going to sound so bad
but candy is one I really love because it really does the simple
incentive. Students just...they fall for it every time. They get really
engaged.

**Derek**:  [33:43] It's kind of a biotechnology.

**Zoe**:  [33:45] Yeah, maybe halfway in between. Besides that, I
would say, definitely a nice table where everyone could sit around.
That's the ideal. Of course, most lecture classrooms can't accommodate
that but you're fixing that with the flip classroom stuff.

**Derek**:  [34:06] [laughs] We're trying.

**Zoe**:  [34:07] We can just...Yeah, get the lectures outside of the
classroom but...

**Derek**:  [34:11] Where can we find you online, Zoe?

**Zoe**:  [34:14] Yes. Twitter, @zoe_leblanc. I actually, also, own
zoeleblanc but I can't get intense.

[34:20] [laughter]

**Zoe**:  [34:21] It's just a picture of me at five which is...

[34:24] [laughter]

**Zoe**:  [34:24] It's weird [laughs] sort of account.

**Derek**:  [34:26] I have two versions of me on Facebook.

**Zoe**:  [34:29] Really?

**Derek**:  [34:30] I joined when I was teaching at Harvard and I used
my Harvard email address when Facebook was just getting started. When I
moved to Vanderbilt...

**Zoe**:  [34:36] You were part of the early days?

**Derek**:  [34:38] I was. I was in the first 2,000 users. I moved to
Vanderbilt and when I changed my email, somehow it forged my account.
Now, there's like a ghost version of Derek still on Facebook somewhere.

**Zoe**:  [34:49] [laughs] Evil Derek. [laughs]

**Derek**:  [34:51] He's only got three friends so he must not be very
likable.

**Zoe**:  [34:53] Yeah, definitely evil.

[34:54] [laughter]

**Zoe**:  [34:55] Yeah. There's Twitter and then my website. It's just
zoelablanc.com and you can find all my email address, poorly written
blog post. They're all there for you.

**Derek**:  [35:06] Zoe, this has been a great conversation. Thanks
for chatting with us about digital pedagogy.

[35:11] [background music]

**Zoe**:  [35:11] It's been my absolute pleasure Derek and I'm really
looking forward to hearing this podcast, so thank you.

**Derek**:  [35:18] That was <NAME>, a doctoral student in
history at Vanderbilt University. Zoe is so thoughtful about digital
pedagogy and I'm glad we could feature her on the podcast.

[35:27] In the show notes, you'll find links to Zoe's website, her
twitter account, The HASTAC Network, Vanderbilt's new Center for Digital
Humanities, and a couple of other resources that Zoe and I mentioned.
You can find those show notes on our website, leadinglinespod.com.

[35:41] You can also find us on Twitter where our handle is
@leadinglinespod. Leading Lines is produced by the Vanderbilt Center for
Teaching, The Vanderbilt Institute for Digital Learning that offers a
scholarly communications at the Vanderbilt library and the Associate
Provost for Digital Learning.

[35:54] [background music]

**Derek**:  [35:54] Look for new episodes the first and third Monday
of each month. I'm your host, <NAME>. Thanks for listening.

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