DigiSET, the Erasmus+ Teacher Academy, has a new voice. DigiSET Talks is a podcast series produced by OpenCom with scientific oversight from the University of Siena, and it opens with the episode No teacher learns alone, now on YouTube and on the project website. At its heart lies a question every teacher recognises: why teaching in isolation is no longer enough.
DigiSET Talks will run for the whole life of the project, with 30 episodes between 2026 and 2028, curated in turn by the consortium partners. Each episode is a short, two-voice conversation in English, made for a European audience of teachers, school leaders, policy makers and citizens interested in where digital skills, sustainability and good teaching meet. You do not need to know the project to listen. The series explains, explores and connects, without turning into an institutional showcase.
The first episode begins with a familiar scene, the teacher who closes the classroom door at the end of a lesson and is left alone with whatever just happened. From there, the two hosts explore why the solitary model of teaching is showing its limits, and why teacher learning communities, built on structured collaboration, peer observation and honest reflection on real lessons, are now the most reliable route to sustainable professional development. The scientific content of the episode is provided by Mario Giampaolo, Associate Professor at the University of Siena.
Behind the series stands DigiSET, the Digitally Sustainable European Teacher Academy funded under the Erasmus+ programme, which brings together 16 partners across eight countries, coordinated by the University for Continuing Education Krems. The project supports teachers in developing a new competence profile, one that holds together digital ability, environmental awareness and the personal and social skills needed to teach in a changing world. It works through three tools, a community of practice, a massive open online course and a virtual simulation platform, along a path that moves teachers from learners to developers and, finally, to ambassadors of change.
One choice ties the form of the podcast to the themes of the project: the episodes are made with artificial intelligence, openly and deliberately. This is not a technical gimmick, it is part of the message. The method developed to produce them, from reading the source materials to generating the voices, will become part of the pool of experience available to the teachers of the Academy, who can reuse and adapt it for their own teaching. In this way the podcast is not simply a communication product, it becomes a method others can repeat, and it extends the project’s value well beyond its end date.
The series is produced by OpenCom, which leads the project communication, while overall scientific oversight rests with the University of Siena. Each episode is then curated by a different consortium partner, who invites an expert to provide its scientific content. The first is curated by the University of Siena, which in this opening episode is both the curating partner and the expert institution. Future releases will follow the rhythm of the project, giving voice to the themes and research of its different partners.
The first episode is already available on:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0KmWZk0xOs
Website: https://digisetproject.eu/podcast/
EPALE: https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/node/423934
DigiSET project, digisetproject.eu. Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the EACEA.