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!
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Our Christmas Learning Challenge begins tomorrow, Wednesday 6 December! We have put together 12 short videos from LinkedIn Learning for you to watch and learn from over the next 12 work days. This content ranges from 1-8 minutes and will help you to develop a range of skills – from tips to boost productivity, keyboard shortcuts in Outlook to developing better sleep habits.
If you have any questions about the challenge, or about LinkedIn Learning in general, please email the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk), and we hope you enjoy your 12 days of learning!
Blogpost by Joel Williams (Student Digital Champion)
To accompany a blogpost that I published last week on how you can use time management tools to help you master your schedule, I’ve created an infographic (text version below) which summarises some of the key strategies and tools that have worked for me.
There may be many different reasons why you want to learn to code. It may be a skill that you want to practice for your degree; it could be a hobby of yours; or your may be interested in developing this skill to enhance your employability.
Knowing how to code is an incredibly valuable skill, but it if you’re new to coding, it may be difficult to know how to make a start. Luckily, LinkedIn Learning, an online learning platform which all students and staff at AU have free access to (learn how to get started), have launched a new partnership with CoderPad.
They have launched an array of new Code Challenge courses on Python, Java, SQL, JavaScript, C#, and Go, designed to help beginner to advanced learners develop their coding skills through interactive exercises and real-time feedback.
Take a look at the video below to learn more about these challenges:
There are currently 33 Code Challenges (but this is continually increasing), and you can also learn how to code and practice your skills with additional GitHub programming courses in LinkedIn Learnings.
Here are a couple of Code Challenge courses for you to get started with!
If you have any queries about any of the content mentioned in this blogpost, or if you have any general queries about LinkedIn Learning, please contact the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk).
