2024 has been a productive year for the Digital Skills team! Below is a list of the favourite things we’ve created in the last year including new formats, events, and resources:
👩🏻💻 New webpages to help you work in a step-by-step process to develop your skills
We hope that you’ve enjoyed using these resources as much as we’ve enjoyed making them. We’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and we look forward to supporting your skills in 2025!
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.
Complete Guide Courses are now available in LinkedIn Learning to all at Aberystwyth University. These courses are fantastic for those that want to delve into developing specific tech skills with expert instructors. Whether you’re a beginner aiming to learn a new programme from scratch, or someone with more experience looking to progress further, these courses could be for you.
Here’s an example of some of the available Complete Guide courses with new ones being released each month:
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.
Blogpost by Noel Czempik (Student Digital Champion)
With days getting longer and temperatures on the rise, many crave spending more time outdoors. To enhance your outdoor adventures, I’ve compiled a list of my favourite free apps that will hopefully spark your curiosity and deepen your appreciation for nature.
AllTrails
AllTrails is a pocket guide to walking trails, biking routes and nature spots suitable for various activity levels and abilities. The app allows you to plan your next adventure, whether small or big and helps you discover new places or return to your favourite spots!
These are some of my favorite features in the app:
Search for trails by location and filter by type of activity, difficulty, accessibility and length.
Access detailed trail information, including thorough descriptions of the pathways, current weather and ground conditions, and available facilities.
Check out reviews and photos to help you decide if it’s the right trail for you.
Save your favourite trails and share them with others in the app.
Have you ever seen a plant whilst out walking and wondered what it was? Seek allows you to effortlessly identify species of plants, animals, and fungi on the go. The app does not require registration; simply download it and point it at living things around you!
My favourite features in the app are:
You can point the in-app camera at what you’d like to identify or take a picture and upload it to the app later.
Learn more about the species’ taxonomy, seasonality, and geographical origin.
Being able to engage with a community and share the species that you’ve found with the app. PlantNet is another app that’s useful if you want to be part of a citizen science project on plant biodiversity.
The final app I’d like to share with you is SkyView Lite. This app contains an interactive sky map that allows users to recognise stars, planets and other celestial objects. The app is intuitive, accurate and easy to personalise. In Wales, weather can often be unpredictable, and clear skies often come as a surprise. With SkyView at hand, you can take full advantage of spontaneous stargazing!
My favourite things about the app are:
It does not require an internet connection or GPS, so it can be used in remote areas.
Tap on any celestial object to get a detailed description. Tap again for more information and educational facts.
The app works indoors, too, so you can learn anytime, regardless of the weather.
Here is your final DigiTip for this academic year but you can catch up on all of our previous DigiTIps from this page. We hope that you’ve found our tips useful, and we’ll be back in September ’24 where we’ll continue support your confidence with technology, one DigiTip at a time!
Do you sometimes struggle in larger meetings to know who is currently speaking? …..“was that Ffion or Bethan?!” Maybe you’re working in a loud environment and are struggling to hear others in the meeting speak? Perhaps you’ve joined a meeting where the language spoken isn’t your first language? Or perhaps you appreciate the accessibility of having subtitles?
If any of the above are true for you, then you will likely find the functionality to enable live captions in MS Teams useful. Watch the video below to learn how to enable live captions:
It’s worth noting a couple of things if you’re using this feature:
Live captions are only visible to those that have enabled the feature within the meeting, meaning that if you switch them on, they won’t automatically appear for everyone!
Live caption data is permanently deleted after a meeting, so no one will have access to this information.
Visit this webpage for further support and guidance in using MS Teams.
In today’s competitive job market, it’s important for university students to stand out. One way to do this is by earning certificates for completed courses on your Aberystwyth University LinkedIn Learning account and adding them to your personal LinkedIn profile.
But why does this matter? Adding certificates increases your chances of being found by recruiters looking for specific skills, showing them your commitment to ongoing learning and career development, making you a more appealing candidate.
Watch the video below to learn how to add LinkedIn Learning certificates to your personal LinkedIn profile ⬇
Learn more about LinkedIn Learning from this session at the Digital Skills Festival ’23 (Welsh session; English session)
If you have any questions about adding LinkedIn Learning certificates to your personal LinkedIn profile, please contact the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk) or view the official LinkedIn Learning Certificate FAQ page.
This is a very quick tip, but hopefully a useful one! There may be occasions where you need to minimise all the open windows and apps on your laptop or desktop screen. Perhaps you are just about to start presenting and want to remove all open windows? Or you may just want to remove all clutter and get back to your desktop?
You can press the Windows key + D to minimise all open apps and windows and will take you back to the desktop. If you want to reopen all windows and apps, just press the same keystrokes again!
Blogpost by Jia Ping Lee (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)
I remember first stumbling across Code First Girls through their social media during the summer of 2023, and then I learnt of Aberystwyth University’s new partnership with them. Having had no prior experience of coding and not having much knowledge about the tech world, I was surprised at how easy it was to look through the courses that Code First Girls were offering and regardless of what level of coding you had – there would be an appropriate course for you.
Being a complete beginner with coding languages, I had a look through their introductory courses titled MOOCs (Code First Girls’ massive open online courses). These courses were designed to introduce and provide beginner level tech skills and help build up confidence in an area of your choice. What I thought was fantastic about these courses was how it was organised and rolled out. With MOOC Sprints, they were running over 4 weeks with 1 one-hour live session per week and after the Sprint ended, you had the opportunity to test your knowledge and experience real world problem solving with MOOC Challenges and receive a certificate of completion after passing the session quizzes. I experienced a variety of the introduction courses offered including coding, web development and solving problems with Python. As I was able to review what I learned at my own pace after classes, it wasn’t as overwhelming as I initially thought, and the course tutors were always available to contact if you needed extra help or guidance.
Having thoroughly enjoyed taking the first steps towards gaining some tech confidence, I am looking forward to developing the skills I’ve learnt from the introductory courses and progressing onto the next level. I think that the most important lesson I have taken away from this experience is to never be afraid of trying something new that is outside of your comfort zone. The coding world may initially seem scary and difficult to get into, especially if you hadn’t learned about it before. But with Code First Girls, they really are here to help guide and support us to achieve the best skillset we need for future exciting opportunities!
Take a look at this blogpost where you’ll find 5 reasons why you should take advantage of Aberystwyth University’s partnership with Code First Girls. To find out more information about all the opportunities available with Code First Girls, please visit their website.
Blogpost by Shân Saunders (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)
As the end of the academic year approaches, you may be starting to think about job prospects and future careers and where to start with this journey. LinkedIn now offer “Rock your Profile” webinars to help you learn how to build an interesting profile that is appealing to your ideal audience as well highlighting key features and best practices for building an engaging profile. These webinars are available at different times of day, register now at: Rock Your Profile (linkedin.com).
Aberystwyth University Careers service also offer reviews and advice on improving CV’s and LinkedIn profiles. You can access these services through in person drop-ins at Level D Hugh Owen Library during term time, the Careers team are also available via email at: careers@aber.ac.uk. Alternatively, the Careers team also conduct sessions on successfully building a CV and a LinkedIn profile, these sessions are advertised on the career’s portal: www.aber.ac.uk/ABERcareers. We also had a session about how to use LinkedIn at our Digital Skills Festival which you can access here: How to use LinkedIn – Digital Skills Festival 2023 (6 – 10 November) (aber.ac.uk). You can view further resources on LinkedIn through the videos below:
