St. Mary’s students take eSmart to the airwaves

When Kayla Borg, STEM Specialist Teacher at St. Mary’s School in Whittlesea, reached out to eSmart Schools for advice on running a podcast lesson for her Year 5-6 students, a unique collaboration began.

Together, the eSmart team, Kayla and the students co-designed a lesson that not only reinforced the four online safety risk areas—Content, Contact, Conduct, and Compulsion—but also gave students an incredible opportunity to amplify their voices.

After testing the lesson in the classroom, Kayla and her group of 12 enthusiastic students took their learning to the next level. With the support of the eSmart team, they headed to VicHealth’s free podcasting studio to record their own podcast.

Covering topics like managing screen time, practicing online kindness, and spotting trustworthy content, the students created a thought-provoking podcast that reflects their understanding of digital citizenship.

Mitch Groenewold, eSmart Program Engagement Advisor with the Alannah & Madeline Foundation, worked closely with Kayla and her students to bring this project to life. They explained how the hands-on nature of the activity reinforced the topic areas students were learning about.

“It gave students a chance to engage with digital literacy while studying digital literacy,” Mitch says.

“They had to use a variety of digital tools, be it a laptop or a phone or a microphone; they had to proactively ask for consent when interviewing people. This exercise combined multiple lesson plans in terms of the skills they were putting into practice.

"The podcast really increased student engagement by giving them something tangible to work on. If we’d given them the same inputs and then told them to go write an essay about it, we might have lost them.”

From brainstorming ideas to stepping into the recording studio, the lesson showcased the power of student voice and digital citizenship in action. As Mitch points out, it was really the students who took ownership of the podcast and saw it through to the final product.

“We gave them the structure of what a segment was, and they brainstormed ideas based on the principles of the 4Cs. They then wrote all the ideas out on sticky notes and voted on them, and then they created and recorded the segments themselves.”

This project highlights how the eSmart Digital Licence program supports educators in fostering critical conversations about online safety while equipping students with practical, real-world skills.

The podcast lesson is just one of many engaging ways the eSmart Digital Licence program brings learning to life. There’s no limit to the ways educators can inspire students through their own creative digital citizenship projects, supporting learners to be safe, smart, and responsible online while making their voices heard.

We’ll be sharing the full podcast from St Mary’s soon. We’re also in the process of building a lesson plan based on this exercise to guide students wanting to create their own podcast.

If you’d like to find out more about eSmart podcasts or have any other creative youth participation ideas you'd like our support with, contact the eSmart team at [email protected].