Our community hub is the place for the people who support education to connect. This is a round up of creative community activities at  Digifest 2026  that helped us share ideas and have fun

Creativity creates connection.

As community builders we always look for ways to create new and meaningful connection. Digifest hosts sessions and exhibitors, but this year we wanted to try something different. We introduced creative sessions to encourage moments of reflection in between the main programme and let people relax with crafting and play.

Activities included:

• Badge making – we had templates of mandalas, animals and stickers for people to colour in, make personal and be pressed on to a badge to keep.

• Collage making – there were card prompts on tables asking what community means to you, with stamps for people to decorate and turn into a collage.
• Origami – people could also follow instructions to make different animals like birds or frogs.
• Library themed jigsaw – lastly, we had a dedicated table for a jigsaw.

Creating these opportunities gave people a chance to be fully present. We relax when we do something creative, we enter a flow state and become more focused. Conversation and connection grow naturally. We loved listening to people share what had inspired them, what tools they use and how they adapt approaches that other institutions could learn from.

“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.” John Cleese

Workshops designed with passion and purpose.

Workshops were another key activity that gave our communities a chance to focus on specific challenges or topics.

Community sessions involved:

• The FE library LRC community asked for examples of how individual roles in digital learning and teaching represented ‘glue work’. This work is often the unseen elements that hold practices together. Community members wrote their responses which were pieced together to create a banner.

• The Digital wellbeing community asked, how we make our students bloom with wellbeing, and hosted a rose, bud, thorn activity with people responding when they caught a stress ball.
• The Jisc Adobe transforming together programme looked at different roles and strategic aims for implementing cloud-based design tools and their implications with a role the dice activity.
• The Jisc Digital Storytelling group argued the case for storytelling in relation to employability with group discussions.
• The UK XR community explored how smart glasses might be used in post16 education, either as an assistive technology or as a teaching and learning tool.
• Our activating community-led skills project explored the recipe for success in learning communities by looking at different prompt cards with questions on stages of community building.

• The project also shared tactics for developing staff skills via community. We gathered ideas in a tension pairing exercise to find the quick wins. We are also looking for your community stories so complete this form to share how you are collaborating.

We displayed all the activity outputs on the walls for people to read and review throughout the two days.

We would like to thank everyone who visited and made Digifest 2026 so memorable. When we spend time nurturing new and old relationships, they bring wonderful insights to the possibilities ahead. If you spent time with us and joined any of the creative community activities at Digifest 2026 let us know what you enjoyed.

Get support for your community.

If you would like to learn more about our champions, listen to our community hub podcast playlist on SoundCloud.