On completing a digital methods course, one student told his teacher (the author) he did not know what to make of the class, and it had been a strange experience. This article reports on the curriculum that precipitated this and similar responses from preservice teachers and art students, conversations sparked by the incongruity of crossing thresholds that not only seem out of reach, but are unforeseeable. Most of these students have never written a line of computer code before taking the class, but they learn to hold and give over to "digital" as an expressive material. Although many students begin the semester by saying they hate technology, by the end of the term, they are comfortably sharing generative art, interactive poetry, and robots with a sense of humor, among other things. This points to the arts-based research community they build during the course, and the way it helps them push and pull on digital materialities. The author is confident the course works because of the way the arts-based research community draws practice across learning thresholds that often separate intentions from materials.