This week our seven-week series of Employer Digital Skills Profiles will begin. Similar to the Graduate Profile Series that we released last year, the Employer Profile series is a set of profiles from a variety of employers to help see what digital skills are essential and valued across varying professions. A new profile will be released every Thursday at 11:30 starting this week with the theatre company Arad Goch! Make sure to tune in to read the new profiles and you can go back and read our Graduate Digital Skills Profiles Series here.
Have you ever gotten stuck trying to think of a different word to take your sentence to the next level? There’s no need to struggle anymore! With DigiTip 37, learn how to use the synonyms function in Word. View step by step instructions below or watch the short video to learn more!
Simply:
Right click on the chosen word
Hover over ‘synonyms’
Select a new word!
Still not seeing an appropriate word? Select thesaurus and view more!
In September 2023, we launched the new ‘IS Digital Essentials for teaching’ Blackboard site. The site is a culmination of resources from Information Services that any new academic staff member might need. This includes a checklist for everything you need to complete before you begin teaching as well as information and access to resources you could currently need, or you may want to digitally enhance your teaching.
This is a reminder to all academic staff that the Blackboard site is still available to support any new or existing staff. View the Blackboard site to learn more.
If you have any questions or if you’re having trouble accessing the course. Please contact us at: digi@aber.ac.uk
Next week will be the return of DigiTips, our once-a-week tip or trick to help you with your Digital Skills! You can view the DigiTips that were posted last year here and find out which 5 were the most popular in this blogpost. Remember to keep your eyes out for this year’s DigiTips by subscribing to the blog!
Blogpost by Shân Saunders (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)
In September 2023, the Digital Skills Team began DigiTips – a weekly blogpost to highlight a useful tip that you can use to make your daily digital life easier. Below are the top 5 DigiTips from 2023/24.
Are you working on one screen and struggling? Are you tired of swapping between two windows? Did you know that you can split your screen to view two things at once making it much easier to view two windows at the same time. This means that you can work on documents, tabs and much more side-by-side.
Most of us will be more familiar with using emojis on our mobile phones 📱, but there will be times when we’ll want to include emojis when using our laptops or computers💻. Instead of googling for the emoji you need, why not access it directly from your keyboard!?
Are you struggling to concentrate on your work? Are you procrastinating on social media? Do you need to limit your scrolling time? Did you know you can now limit your Instagram scrolling time through the Instagram settings.
Have you ever copied and pasted content from a webpage or another document into a new Word document and found that it completely messes up your formatting? Luckily, there are additional options outside of the basic pasting option (ctrl+v) which can help solve this!
Sometimes, you may need to set some time aside to concentrate on a particular piece of work, but how can you show other people who are also online that you’re busy? Microsoft Teams allows you to set your status to Do not disturb, meaning that you won’t be interrupted by Teams notifications or calls (unless you choose to receive these from specific people), but it can be too easy to forget to turn this status off once you’re finished.
Blogpost by Shân Saunders (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)
In February we wrote a blogpost about apps to help with your reading habits. As it’s National Book Lover’s Day, there are new updates to one of the apps mentioned – Fable. Fable is a combination of a reading app and social media where you can see updates from other readers including opinions that they have on your previously read and want to read books.
Recent updates include having your reading streak and progress update bar on the homepage for easy access. Additionally, Fable is now branching out from books with the option to mark your progress and join clubs for TV shows meaning you can watch episodes and discuss your favourite shows with other fans. Fable is also currently testing a new AI chatbot called Scout where you input prompts for suggestions and recommendations for your next reads based on tropes and genres or if you’re looking for something similar to another read.
The main new feature is the stats page. Under your user profile, there is now a reader summary, a little AI summary which automatically updates after every read. Within this there is also a graph of the books you have read this year with a reader insight into when you’re due to reach your reading goal. Along with the reading streak widget on the homepage, you can view how much you read in previous months including your longest reading streak. You can also view a graph with your most read genres and underneath this you can see your average rating of books you have read.
Blogpost by Shân Saunders (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)
AI and generative AI have become increasingly more ingrained into our lives whether through personal or professional use. LinkedIn Learning has a variety of information to help you learn more about AI including how to use AI responsibly. See below for the top 10 courses available on AI and generative AI on LinkedIn Learning. Please note that currently LinkedIn Learning does not support courses in Welsh.
LinkedIn Learning is a free resource available to all Aberystwyth University students and staff. If you need help accessing your LinkedIn Learning account, please view our FAQ’s or you can email us at digi@aber.ac.uk.
Blogpost by Shân Saunders (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)
In November 2023, we held Aberystwyth University’s first ever Digital Skills Festival. We held 28 different events over 5 days that spanned a variety of digital skills areas including sessions conducted on AI, cybersecurity, LinkedIn Learning, digital wellbeing, Excel and much more!
You’re able to review all the workshops and presentations that took place on our Digital Skills Festival website under the 2023 recordings and resources tab where you can watch the sessions back and for practical sessions you can work along on the provided worksheets.
If you have any issues accessing the recordings, please contact the Digital Skills Team at digi@aber.ac.uk and keep an eye out for upcoming information on Digital Skills Festival 2024 due to return later this year!
Blogpost by Shân Saunders (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)
8th June 2024 is Global Wellness Day, a day to reflect on your wellbeing and mental health. This year our Student Digital Champions introduced a Digital Wellbeing Series that covered a wide range of digital life to help improve others digital wellbeing with tips and tricks.
They explored digital ergonomics including creating a LinkedIn Learning collection about the best set up for your desk and advice on how to reduce eyestrain through the 20-20-20 rule and enabling dark mode. One of our student digital champions embarked on a digital detox which included deleting all social media apps, disabling notifications, replacing Face ID with a deliberate password and being more mindful of their purpose of being on their phone. They recounted their pros, cons, and advice for anyone else looking to indulge in a digital detox.
As well, our digital champion found that the app ScreenZen was a blessing during their digital detox to help enforce better boundaries while interacting with apps and becoming more mindful of your digital consumption. The Digital Wellbeing series also looked at the importance of digital decluttering and organizing your digital spaces, including creating better folders, customising your home screens, and clearing out your downloads folder.
Other digital wellbeing resources include a blogpost for any iPhone user about the inbuilt features in settings to help with your screen time limit and a feature to help distance your phone to reduce eyestrain.
