DigiTip 29: Move between Windows with ease 🔁

Whether you’re working on one screen or two, you will most likely have multiple windows open and as such you have probably found yourself frantically trying to find the window you’re looking for.  

DigiTip 29 has the solution! 

You can view and swap between all your open windows by using Windows key + Tab.   

View the short clip below to see the shortcut in action.  

Each week we’ll be posting a useful DigiTip to help you make the best use of technology. To follow our DigiTips, subscribe to our Digital Skills Blog. Or alternatively, you can bookmark this webpage, where a new DigiTip will be added each week! 

Develop your AI Skills with hands-on practice in LinkedIn Learning 👩‍💻

Back in October 2023, we wrote about an exciting new partnership between LinkedIn Learning and CoderPad, which brought forth the addition of Code Challenges to LinkedIn Learning. These challenges are tailored to assist learners, from beginners to advanced, in developing their coding skills through interactive exercises and real-time feedback. You can revisit our previous blogpost on this collaboration here.

AI and Generative AI are swiftly becoming the cornerstones of innovation. To support your development in these skills, LinkedIn Learning has expanded its collection to include 73 courses with hands-on practice for AI and Generative AI skills. You can find all of these courses on this webpage or explore a selection of them below.

Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced

All students and staff have access to all courses on LinkedIn Learning, including those with hands-on practice, through your free Aberystwyth University LinkedIn Learning account. If you have any queries about LinkedIn Learning or accessing any of the content mentioned in this blogpost, please contact the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk), or come along with your questions to one of our weekly drop-in sessions!

Boost your productivity in MS Teams 💡 

Blogpost by Sioned Llywelyn (Digital Skills Lead) 

As someone who uses Microsoft Teams every day for work, I’ve discovered a collection of useful keyboard shortcuts and tips that have helped me in navigating the platform more efficiently. Whether you’re a staff member jumping from one meeting to the next, or a student using MS Teams to collaborate on projects or attend virtual lectures, these tips should help you to make the most of MS Teams. 

Keyboard ShortcutDescription
Ctrl+Shift+O Turn off your camera 
Ctrl+Shift+M Mute your microphone 
Ctrl+K Create shorter hyperlinks 
Shift+Enter Start a new line in the chatbox without sending the message 
Summary of the key keyboard shortcuts mentioned in this blogpost

Turn off your camera quickly

There are times when you need to quickly turn off your video during a call, it may be that your bandwidth is limited or there are distractions behind you. Quickly toggle your camera on and off by using the Ctrl+Shift+O shortcut. 

Customise your hyperlinks

Instead of cluttering your messages with lengthy URLs, make use of the Ctrl+K shortcut. This shortcut allows you to customise the displayed text for your hyperlink, making your messages more concise!

Mute your microphone

Background noise can also disrupt meetings (I have two dogs that bark whenever someone rings the doorbell, so this is my most-used shortcut!) Use Ctrl+Shift+M to mute and unmute your microphone swiftly. 

Refine your search results

Teams has an useful search functionality, but sometimes it can yield too many results! Make the most of the available filters to refine your search and to save you time.

Start a new line in the chatbox without sending your message

Typing messages in Teams can be tricky, especially when you want to add line breaks without sending the incomplete message. Use Shift+Enter to start a new line in the chatbox without sending the message prematurely.

Make quick decisions with the polling feature

Do you need to gather opinions or make decisions quickly? If you’re looking to create a poll once you’ve started your meeting, Teams offers a built-in polling feature.

Please note: We suggest that you use Vevox, AU’s polling tool, if you’re looking to set up a poll in advance of your online meeting or session.

Mark messages as urgent or important

Do you want to send an important message on Teams and are worried that it will get lost within a stream of messages? To solve this issue, you can mark any messages as urgent or important in MS Teams.

Do you have any other shortcuts or other general tips when you’re using MS Teams? If so, we’d love to hear from you! Share your tips and shortcuts in the box below

DigiTip 28: How to add comments in collaborative documents online 📃

Are you planning to work on a collaborative group project with your peers or do you want a co-worker to provide you with comments without permanently editing the document?

Today, we will look at how to add comments to collaborative documents that multiple people can edit. By utilising the comment function, others can understand your ideas behind any changes, ask any questions and offer alternatives without affecting the main document.

With the comment function, there are various features you can make the most of – replying to comments, reacting to comments, and resolving them through tracked changes.

Let’s have a look at the video below for a brief demonstration:

N.B. This video was recorded in Microsoft SharePoint. However, the process with SharePoint and OneDrive are very similar to each other.

To follow our DigiTips, subscribe to our Digital Skills Blog. Or alternatively, you can bookmark this webpage, where a new DigiTip will be added each week! 

Develop your Digital Communication Skills 📱

Want to learn how to improve your digital communication skills and especially how to use Instagram to promote your Business or Social Enterprise?

AberPreneurs, part of the University’s Careers Service, are running an exciting online event, Instagram for your Business/Social Enterprise – with Kacie Morgan, on Wednesday 24 April (14:10-15:00). This session will be delivered online on MS Teams, and you can join here.

For any queries, please contact aberpreneurs@aber.ac.uk.

Test your understanding of AI with the Jisc Digital Discovery Tool!

A new ‘Digital Skills in AI and Generative AI’ questionnaire for students and staff is now available in the Jisc Digital Discovery Tool. This new questionnaire will help you to self-assess and develop your knowledge of AI in the following seven areas:

  1. AI and digital proficiency
  2. Responsible AI
  3. AI and digital productivity
  4. AI and information and data literacy
  5. AI and digital communication
  6. AI and collaboration and participation
  7. AI and digital creativity

After answering a series of questions, which takes around 10-15 minutes, you will receive a personal report which will include:

  • An overview of your confidence with AI
  • Suggested actions to take
  • Links to useful resources, curated by Jisc’s National Centre for AI, to help you develop your knowledge of AI

Click here to access the Digital Discovery Tool platform, and watch the short video below to learn how to access this new questionnaire ⬇

If you have any queries about this new questionnaire, please contact the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk), or come along with your questions to one of our weekly drop-in sessions!

Learn to code FOR FREE with Code First Girls! ⚡

Have you ever wanted to learn how to code? Well now you can do so, for free, by taking full advantage of our partnership with Code First Girls! We’ve listed 5 reasons below why you should make the most of this wonderful opportunity.

Please note that Code First Girls is open to women and non-binary people. If you are not eligible to undertake the courses offered through Code First Girls, there are many other free opportunities available, including coding challenges and courses with CoderPad and GitHub in LinkedIn Learning.

Questions❓

If you have any questions about the courses available with Code First Girls, please contact them directly.

Read More

DigiTip 27: Save time by setting up recurring meetings in Microsoft Outlook 🔁

Whether you want to schedule weekly catch-ups with colleagues, bi-weekly project meetings, or monthly team meetings, knowing how to set these up using the recurring meetings function in Microsoft Outlook will save you a lot of time!

The below video demonstrates how to set up recurring meetings in the desktop app version of Outlook, but the process for setting these up on MS Teams or the web version of Outlook is very similar.

Once set up, your reoccurring meeting will now appear as a series in your calendar, and if you need to alter any details, you’ll always have the option of altering just a single occurrence or the whole series.

To follow our DigiTips, subscribe to our Digital Skills Blog. Or alternatively, you can bookmark this webpage, where a new DigiTip will be added each week!

A Juggling Act: Navigating Studies and Job Applications ⚖

Blogpost by Joel Williams (Student Digital Champion)

Banner with Student Digital Champion

For many students, balancing studying for exams, completing coursework, and actively searching for employment opportunities can seem insurmountable. I have found it challenging to stay on top of my studies while trying to find relevant jobs and then completing page after page of applications. Enter platforms like Gradcracker and AberCareers. First introduced to me during the Digital Skills Festival, Gradcracker, like many similar sites, amalgamated many employment opportunities explicitly tailored to my skills. In this blog post, I hope to outline some of the approaches I used to help manage my studies whilst job hunting and signposting several resources available via the University.

Managing your time ⏰

One of the foremost challenges job-hunting students face is time management. With lectures, seminars, and assignments demanding their attention, carving out dedicated time for job applications can be challenging. Truthfully, I found the time required by each job application to be an excellent way to procrastinate on my dissertation, which helped me complete it quickly. However, as my third year continued and other assignments started to loom, I found the best way to stay on top of it all was to give myself an hour or two each week when I would only focus on job application. To meet my self-imposed time limit, I save the URL of any roles I’m interested in and if they are on Gradcracker, I make sure to shortlist them, making them easy to find and highlighting how long I have to apply for the role.

So Much Writing ✍

Another hurdle students encounter is the pressure to stand out in a highly competitive job market. Crafting a compelling CV, writing tailored cover letters, and preparing for interviews are all essential components of the job application process. However, balancing academic achievements and relevant work experience can take time and effort, especially for those juggling multiple commitments simultaneously. The most helpful resource I found when trying to update my CV was to use the daily drop-in sessions offered by the careers service. I found having another pair of eyes check over everything invaluable.

One of the sections of my CV I have always struggled to complete has always been the skills section. This is partially because it can be hard to know what is the most important to list and also because it can often be challenging to come up with a list of skills on the spot. To help complete these sections, I used a combination of module information and the Jisc Digital Discovery Tool, which I used to identify my digital proficiencies.

Example of a Jisc Digital Discovery Tool report

Polishing your Digital Presence 👣

One of the first steps I took early in the job application process was updating and polishing my LinkedIn profile. Spurred on by a session on How to use LinkedIn during the Digital Skills Festival, I revised much of my pre-existing profile and created something that I am now able to use for job applications.

Checking your digital footprint is an often overlooked element of applying for jobs in a digital age. My fellow Digital Champion Noel has written a handy blogpost exploring the steps you can take to protect your digital footprint and ensure that the public and employers can only see what you want them to. The Digital Skills Team have also curated a LinkedIn Learning collection on managing your digital identity.

Career Service 💬

If you’re looking for more specific advice, the careers service is the best people to speak to and details of how best to use this service, which is open to current students and post-graduates, can be found on their webpage.

Our DigiTips are returning next week!

Since September 2023, the Digital Skills Team have been publishing short and sweet weekly DigiTips that we think will help you make the most of technology. So far, we’ve published 26 tips ranging from useful keyboard shortcuts to tools like the blue light filters that can help support your digital wellbeing!

We’ll be returning on Tuesday 16 April with another 7 useful tips, and if you want to explore any of our previous DigiTips, you can access them from this webpage.

How can I follow the DigiTips?

There are a couple of different ways you can follow our DigiTips.

  1. You can bookmark this webpage and a new DigiTip will appear here at 10am each Tuesday during term time (Read DigiTip 1 if you’re unsure how to bookmark a webpage).
  2. If you want to receive an email notification each time we post a new DigiTip, you can subscribe to our Digital Skills Blog.
  3. We also publish each DigiTip on the Information Services Facebook and Instagram pages which you can access from the icons below. From there, you can follow our hashtags #TipiauDigiPA #AUDigiTips