Holding together Hope and despair: Transformative learning through virtual place‐based education in Aotearoa, New Zealand

Abstract This article explores how virtual place‐based education can foster transformative learning for distance students through a study of the Spatial Awareness Project, a digital storytelling film and podcast we co‐created with faculty and students. We found that students engaged with the resources in complex ways, with three dominant themes emerging in qualitative surveys of their emotional engagement: feeling joy, feeling unsettled, and feeling empowered. We argue that digital media that leaves students simultaneously positively affected and unsettled can enable transformative learning through discomfort, creating space for imagining the world in new ways, and sparking new conversations and connections within and outside the classroom.