Join our Christmas Learning Challenge!

Our Christmas Learning Challenge begins tomorrow, Wednesday 7 December! We have put together 12 short courses, videos, and audio content for you to view and listen to over the next 12 days from LinkedIn Learning. This content ranges from 2-8 minutes and will help you to develop a range of skills – from using keyboard shortcuts in MS Teams to developing your self-confidence.

How do I join the challenge?

There are two ways for you to join the challenge:

  • You can either follow the links on each day of the challenge from the calendar below
  • Or you can follow our Christmas Learning Challenge Learning Path (which will also display at the top of the LinkedIn Learning homepage when you login).

Finally, if you haven’t activated your LinkedIn Learning account yet, remember to do so before 6 January 2023 and you will automatically be entered into a raffle where you will have the opportunity of winning one of three £20 vouchers. For any queries about the challenge, please email the Digital Capabilities Team (digi@aber.ac.uk), and we hope you enjoy your 12 days of learning!

Free access to LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning, a third-party E-learning resource, is available for free to all students and staff at Aberystwyth University.

LinkedIn Learning Logo

What is LinkedIn Learning?

The online learning platform has an extensive digital library of expert-led courses and short videos, ranging from business courses to creative and technology-related content. This provides you with an opportunity to develop your professional skills, learn new software, and explore other areas as you plan for personal development, academic and career growth.

Getting started

Accessible 24/7 from your desktop or mobile device, visit LinkedIn Learning by logging in using your Aberystwyth University username and password. Please take a look at our login instructions.

Our Student Digital Champions have been busy producing a number of collections to help students find LinkedIn Learning content related to various topics, including:

Further information

If you experience any issues logging in to LinkedIn Learning, please contact Information Services (is@aber.ac.uk). For any other general queries, please email digi@aber.ac.uk or visit our LinkedIn Learning FAQ pages.

LinkedIn Learning: What new skills could you learn?

Blog post by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)

LinkedIn Learning is a free online learning platform with over 16,000 courses on everything from personal development, design, creative activities, study skills, technical support and so much more! Take a look at this content from our Information Service Instagram @ISAberUni account for some tips and tricks to get you started.

Activate your account by 6 January 2023 to be entered into a raffle where you will have the opportunity of winning one of three £20 vouchers!

Click Read More below for the text version of these visuals.

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Top Tips and Technology to Support Students Living Independently

Blog post by Urvashi Verma (Student Digital Champion)

Banner with Student Digital Champion

As Welcome Week came to an end recently, I hope that you have all settled in comfortably and are getting to grips with your new schedules. This means changing some of your habits and lifestyle to accommodate your university schedule. For a student living independently for the first time, these changes can be even more difficult. From managing money to living with new people, it isn’t always plain sailing. For example, when I started living independently for the first time, I managed to turn all my white clothes into a bright shade of pink!

Through this blog post, I’m going to share with you some useful tips from my own experiences, and especially different apps and technologies that have helped me to feel more comfortable living independently.

Get enough Sleep

Trying to get enough sleep whilst also juggling your life between lectures, assignments and work can be very stressful, and it can take a long time to get used to it. Try maintaining a proper sleep cycle by going to sleep at the same time every night.

Technology: I would recommend a free app called Sleep Cycle: Sleep Recorded.This app will help you record your sleeping pattern, and you can use it to wake you up at just the right time by using an intelligent alarm clock.

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What is Digital Wellbeing?

Blog post by Urvashi Verma (Student Digital Champion)

Digital wellbeing, in layman’s terms is the impact of technology on the overall human wellbeing. In more sophisticated terms, it is the capacity to look after personal safety, relationships, health and work-life balance in digital settings. In today’s world, we have become dependant on technology for our every need. While it is a good thing to utilise technology and its efficient utilisation does solve many problems, any kind of misuse or overuse will have consequences. According to some research, our overall wellbeing is impacted with issues of stress, comparison with others and time management. It leads to worsening of mental wellbeing, mainly in the youth aged 15-24. There are higher chances of mental health issues surfacing in the form of, ranging from but not limited to, loneliness, anxiety and depression.

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Come and visit our LinkedIn Learning stall during Welcome Week!

Blog post by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)

Banner with Student Digital Champion

LinkedIn Learning, which is a free online learning platform, is available to all students. Our stand has information about the platform and shows examples of the sort of short videos, courses and skills you can find on it.

What’s more, if you sign up to LinkedIn Learning by the end of Welcome Week, either online or by using the QR code on our stand, you will be entered into a raffle where you will have the opportunity to win one of three £20 vouchers!

You will find the stand on the ground floor of the Hugh Owen Library (Level D) at the back near the stairs.

Training for Academic Staff: Using LinkedIn Learning to Support your Teaching

LinkedIn Learning is an online learning platform with an extensive digital library of expert-led courses and short videos. We will be delivering training sessions in October 2022 and January 2023 for academic staff who are interested in using LinkedIn Learning to support their teaching.

Sessions will be available in Welsh and English on the following dates:

  • 11 October 2022 (11:00-12:00): Defnyddio LinkedIn Learning i Gefnogi eich Addysgu
  • 13 October 2022 (14:00-15:00): Using LinkedIn Learning to Support your Teaching
  • 17 January 2023 (12:00-13:00): Using LinkedIn Learning to Support your Teaching
  • 18 January 2023 (14:00-15:00): Defnyddio LinkedIn Learning i Gefnogi eich Addysgu

Please visit the Staff Training Webpage for further details and to register your place. For all enquiries, please contact Sioned Llywelyn, Digital Capabilities Officer (digi@aber.ac.uk).

LinkedIn Learning Curator Training in June

Are you interested in learning more about becoming a curator in LinkedIn Learning? With curator access, you can upload and arrange content into an intuitive and engaging format, in addition to receiving insights into how your audience is engaging with your content.  

Simon Lee, Senior Customer Success Manager for Higher Education at LinkedIn, will deliver two training sessions for Aberystwyth University staff in June to demonstrate how to make the best use of the curator functionality in LinkedIn Learning. This training has been split into two parts, and staff are welcome to attend either session but are encouraged to attend both.

  • Tuesday 14 June (14:30-15:30) – LinkedIn Learning: Content and Curation (Part 1)* 
  • Tuesday 21 June (10:00-11:00) – LinkedIn Learning: Content and Curation – Learning in discussion (Part 2)*

*Please note that both sessions will be delivered in English. 

Please visit the Staff Training Webpage for further details and to register your place. For all enquiries, please contact Sioned Llywelyn, Digital Capabilities Officer (digi@aber.ac.uk). 

Earth Day 2022: Invest in our Planet

Today we are celebrating Earth Day, and this year’s theme is #InvestInOurPlanet.

We as individuals can invest our time and effort into learning more about sustainability and the changes that we can make to our daily habits to live a more sustainable life. Remember, small changes can make a big difference to our planet.

We have also created a campaign on LinkedIn Learning for Earth Day and you can access this from the main LinkedIn Learning dashboard. 

Popular LinkedIn Learning courses at Aberystwyth University

Productivity seems to be the order of the day, with LinkedIn Learning courses related to Microsoft 365 being the most viewed by staff and students recently. We’re all familiar with Microsoft 365 but how many of us take full advantage of the tools and functionality it offers?   

The use of MS Teams really came into its own during the pandemic across education sectors and the world of work with 91% of Fortune 100 companies using it in 2019. Beyond meeting virtually, MS Teams aids collaboration via chats, file sharing, task management, project planning, to-do lists and more. I recently attended an MS Teams meeting which made excellent use of virtual whiteboards, a tool I wasn’t aware of until then. Deciding which productively tool to use and when can be tricky, so learning more about each will help you in that decision. 

If you want to learn more about Microsoft 365 tools here are the top five LinkedIn Learning courses viewed at Aberystwyth in the past 30 days. To activate your LinkedIn Learning account, which is free to all AU staff and students, check out our ‘getting started with LinkedIn Learning’ pages.

  1. Microsoft Teams Essential Training (2h 21m)
  2. Learning Office 365 (57m)
  3. Microsoft Planner Essential Training (1h 27m) 
  4. Outlook Essential Training (2h 13m)
  5. Modern Project Management in Microsoft 365 (1h 39m)