As higher education institutions continue to expand their digital learning ecosystems, students and staff are often required to navigate multiple platforms, tools and access points as part of the learning experience. While these technologies can offer valuable flexibility and functionality, they can also create fragmentation, inconsistency and unnecessary complexity for learners. This was a key consideration in University College Dublin’s move to Brightspace. The transition was not simply a platform migration, but an opportunity to rethink how digital learning is experienced across the institution. UCD set out to create a more consistent, connected and student-centred learning environment by bringing key learning tools, resources and activities into one central platform. This session will explore the practical considerations involved in delivering change across a large institution, including stakeholder engagement, staff support, communication, and the importance of designing with the student experience in mind. Attendees will gain insight into how a platform transition can be used as a catalyst for wider digital learning improvement, rather than being treated as a technical implementation alone. By sharing UCD’s approach, challenges and lessons learned, this session will offer practical reflections for institutions seeking to simplify their digital learning environments, improve consistency, and create more connected learning experiences for students and staff.

This paper outlines examines how podcasting, combined with structured safe/brave space facilitation and democratic principles of teaching and learning can empower students to address generative issues (family, childhood, institutional power) in higher education. Drawing on Dewey's creative democracy, where knowledge emerges through non-hierarchical, iterative inquiry (Dewey 1939/2021), Felt’s (2009) ideas around epistemic spaces of learning and Arao & Clemens’ (2013) brave space framework, the paper outlines two university courses that treated students as co-inquirers rather than knowledge recipients in the development of their podcast assignments.

The Literature of Family (final-year undergraduate BA Arts, SETU Waterford, Ireland) explored literature's representation of diverse family structures through readings that highlighted underrepresented voices (Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey (1993) and Unsettled by Rosaleen McDonagh (2021)) and N-TUTORR-funded staff-student curriculum redesign. Media and Childhood (Early Childhood Education, Greece) investigated institutional management of children's agency via a children's podcast production. Both courses explicitly rejected reproductive pedagogy, seeking instead to surface and negotiate power imbalances around topics such as race, disability, sexuality, and generational roles through shared readings, brave space seminars, and podcast assessment.

In Ireland, an online session with Dr Andrea Bramberger, co-editor of Reconceptualizing Safe Spaces: Supporting Inclusive Education (2021), introduced safe and brave space principles that students practised in seminars, then applied in group podcasts (20-40 mins), replacing essays. All completed SETU podcasting badges to prepare for this assessment. In Greece, students collaboratively defined safe spaces through children's podcast creation, negotiating technical and ethical challenges. The podcasts and reflections that resulted offered interesting findings in relation to the value of podcasting in creating safe spaces and offering marginalised voices a place from which to speak.

In Ireland, podcasting functioned as an epistemic living space (Felt 2009; O’Connor and O’Connor 2025), making situated, messy knowledges audible. Student prejudices were revealed in interesting moments of discussion, while the voice of a student with complex disabilities was centred in one submission, veering off the topic a little to consider issues of structural ableism and barriers to accessibility. In Greece, reflections highlighted the shift in thinking that occurred through podcasting, moving students from an emphasis on child protection to child empowerment. They also noted the power of music and song to operate as a shared, inclusive language.

The project demonstrated the ways in which podcasting serves as a space for generative and democratic knowledge creation. What was most central in both countries was the way in which podcasting enabled the development of the learner; it was not the technical achievement of producing the podcast itself that was most valued. Therefore, the project provides a transferable model for courses in which students can become democratically competent inquirers (Lake 2017).

For more than 25 years, Irish HEI’s have been fundamental in developing and operating initiatives and programmes to support students in Higher Education from underrepresented and socio-economic disadvantaged groups. One such initiative at the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), Ireland, was the establishment of the Certificate in Transition to Higher Education programme in 2017. Co-developed between the TUS Flexible Learning Dept. and the Access Service, this programme is a foundation preparation course providing a pathway for students to acquire the skills and competencies required to successfully participate on a degree programme. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory and grounded in principles of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), the programme recognises that the move to higher education can be accompanied by feelings of fear, and overwhelm, particularly for students returning to education or entering from non-traditional backgrounds. This practitioner paper examines the development of a digital initiative through a collaborative partnership between TUS staff and students. This initiative is designed to mitigate feelings of apprehension and to equip prospective students with the confidence to navigate the challenges associated with the transition to higher education.

In 2022, a funding fellowship was secured to develop a suite of digital resources through the National Technological University Transformation for Recovery and Resilience national programme (NTUTORR). Through a process of engagement and dialogue, student and staff partners identified the need for digital pre-arrival supports to enhance students’ sense of belonging and preparedness. Featuring the shared lived experiences of students of the Transitions programme, the fellowship allowed for the development of a suite of peer-led short audio-visual resources that offer practical advice and encouragement to prospective students. Feedback indicates that such resources have the potential to significantly ease concerns about academic capability as well as reduce feelings of isolation. By embedding partnership in digital resource development, this initiative demonstrates how co-creation can advance inclusive practice and strengthen student engagement at critical decision points as they consider the transition to higher education. In recognition of its outstanding commitment to inclusive, innovative and transforming learning initiatives, the Certificate in Transition to Higher Education won the AONTAS STAR Award 2025 in the Third-level Access and Engagement category.

‘Learning Beyond Lectures: The EdTech Talks’ is a student-led podcast series in which final year students from the BSc. in Digital Business and Innovation (DBI) undergraduate degree in Dublin City University Business School research, produce and host a podcast series as part of two final year modules. This podcast series has been specifically designed to enhance student engagement, develop transversal skills and foster integration with industry. Students have autonomy over their own learning efforts and understandings within the podcast series as they take ownership over researching, preparing and producing each episode of the series. They engage deeply with industry to create and record each episode of their podcast series and create a sharable, modern resource that highlights emerging trends and challenges in management, technology and education. Each episode is showcased on Youtube, Audioboom and LinkedIn (once approval has been granted by the industry representative) providing both student and industry a voice in important technology based, industry driven and educationally focused conversations.

Although podcasting has existed in education for a number of years, they have typically been implemented as an academic-led activity (McGarr, 2009) intended to support acquisition learning (Laurillard, 2012). Student-led podcasts, whereby students work in small groups to actively research, prepare and produce podcast episodes to discuss salient topics with various industry representatives are far less common in third level education. In this way, student-led podcasts can transform traditional learning, by providing students with an innovative and unique platform to explore and discuss important topics in an authentic and engaging way. The development of this student-led podcast series as a pedagogy (pod-agogy) is an innovative and exciting platform for students to demonstrate a number of key skills that align with industry practice in a way that speaks the student language. This form of teaching and learning is assessable, engaging and reflective. It afford learners multple means of engagement, allowing students to showcase their knowledge through different means whilst providing opportunities to listen back and reflect on their work, actively shaping disciplinary conversations in education by enabling knowledge exchange and modern engagement between student, industry and the wider community.