In recent days, the Innovation Space at Habs has been a hive of activity. Year 8 students studying English at the Girls’ School have been making the most of our podcasting and green screen space. While on the surface, this might seem like a light-hearted exercise, there is a deeply serious educational purpose behind it.
Activities like these develop skills with relevance far beyond the classroom. Organisations such as the World Economic Forum, the OECD, and UNESCO consistently highlight communication and collaboration as key competencies for future success. In an age of AI, where tasks of replication and description can be done more quickly than humans ever could, communication – the ability to engage an audience effectively – collaboration – the ability to work as part of a team – and persistence in refining a piece of work are all invaluable. These are exactly the kinds of skills our students were honing as they recorded their podcasts.
A lot of presentations students are typically asked to prepare are one-way communication – talk about something for a few minutes – maybe with a Q&A at the end. They can be pre-prepared in their entirety and can be quite artificial, since only the most confident are able to be spontaneous.
In the podcasting task, though, students had to consider the specific demands of the medium. Their work needed to be fluid, engaging, and informal while remaining well-structured and purposeful. This required careful planning, an understanding of tone and delivery, and a real sense of audience awareness. It was a task that required them to think on their feet, adapt their delivery, and engage in genuine conversation.
I was especially impressed with what the students were doing who were not recording. They had had excellent preparation and scaffolding of the task and were fully engaged all the time. They were honing the script, thinking about technical constraints of the medium and the software, learning how to use the program, finding sound-effects.
Collaboration was central to the process. Students worked in pairs or threes, providing feedback to one another, adjusting their delivery, and ensuring their discussions remained lively and natural. This iterative approach—recording, listening back, and re-recording—demanded persistence and a willingness to refine their work until it met their own high standards.
Interestingly, podcasts and vlogs are becoming increasingly commonplace as methods of assessment at top universities. We might associate coursework in higher education with one large dissertation, but the reality is that the diet is far richer than those of us at university at the beginning of the millennium were used to.
Yet these skills—communication, collaboration, resilience—are not just useful for academic success but are crucial for life beyond school. Whether in higher education, the workplace, or creative industries, being able to articulate ideas clearly, work effectively with others, and persevere through challenges are fundamental skills that will serve them well.
It has been fantastic to see the Innovation Space used in such a dynamic way this week, with students immersing themselves in an authentic and engaging learning experience. Activities like these are a reminder that innovation in education is not about technology for its own sake, but about creating opportunities for students to develop the skills and mindsets they will need for the future.
