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At this year’s flagship AdvanceHE Teaching and Learning Conference, held at The Wave, University of Sheffield, Digital Learning’s Paul Ottey and Poonam Pedley presented their transformative approach to student engagement and educational innovation, alongside Chris Clow from Echo360.

Presenting at a session held on the first day of the Conference, they outlined what happens when students are encouraged to lead the innovation process and highlighted how phenomenon-based and active learning strategies can empower students as co-creators of their educational journey.

The foundation of their presentation was the Ideathon, an event launched earlier this year by the Digital Learning team in collaboration with lecture capture partners Echo360. This cross-disciplinary event invited students to reimagine and enhance the University’s lecture capture platform, EchoVideo. Through this initiative, students took the lead in designing solutions, offering fresh perspectives on how technology can better support learning.

At the conference, Paul and Poonam shared with delegates how the Ideathon model and the strategies used encouraged ownership of learning, fostered creativity and critical thinking, and provided a replicable framework for integrating student voice into both technology development and teaching practice.

By embedding students in the design process, the initiative demonstrated the value of authentic student partnership in shaping the future of digital learning.

Faculty Consultant, Paul Ottey said: "It was fantastic to present our work at the AdvanceHE conference. The event brought together current and future thinking on a wide range of things affecting Higher Education. There is a huge interest in student co-creation and collaboration and our project with Echo360 sparked some fascinating conversations. We look forward to continuing to develop this work for the benefit of students and staff at Warwick and beyond."