Our DigiTips are returning next week!

WordPress User [sil12] DigiTips Leave a comment

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

Global Work from Home Day 🏡

Shân Saunders Digital Identity and Wellbeing Leave a comment

Blogpost by Shân Saunders (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)

Working from home for most people has now become the new normal with home offices now a staple of most households. Being able to work from home is a positive in many ways but it can also allow us to be too consumed by our screens as well as having to adapt to new ways of working. As today is global work from home day, we want to share our tips and tricks for being more successful with working from home.  

  1. Step away from the desk! 

As with working in any office, having regular breaks and stepping away from your computer is essential. This could be taking a break to make a drink, taking the time to stretch or even doing some desk yoga! You can view the below LinkedIn Learning courses and videos for some tips on taking breaks and stretching courses. 

  1. Is your desk set up for success?

Digital ergonomics is important both to help your productivity with feeling comfortable and happy with your space but it’s necessary for maintaining your physical health too! You can improve your digital ergonomics through making sure your at home office space is set up correctly, be aware of eye strain and making the needed adjustments where you can. You can learn more about digital ergonomics through the resources below: 

  1. Establish a Routine

Working from home is a great benefit, but it can be very easy to be consumed by work and lose your day which is why it is so important to establish a routine. This can include maintaining a consistent lunch break, having specific focus times on certain days and if you have recurring tasks, completing these on the same days. View the below videos and courses for tips on establishing a routine. 

  1. Perfect Online Meetings

Meeting virtually is now a requirement for anyone working remotely and with this has come about a new form of etiquette. It’s important to maintain professionalism while working from your home office. This can be having a virtual background, ensuring you have a headset of some form, joining the meetings early and being aware of whether your microphone or camera is on. You can learn more about best practice for online meetings with the resources below. 

  1. Stay connected

Although there are so many advantages and benefits to working from home, it can be isolating and difficult to maintain communication with fellow peers and so it’s highly important to stay connected. The best way to do this is to utilise online communication tools. This can be using Microsoft Teams or collaborative documents like Word online or SharePoint. You can learn more about the different types of method to stay connected below. 

Spark new ideas with Ayoa! 🌟

Shân Saunders Digital communication, collaboration and participation, Digital proficiency and productivity Leave a comment

Blogpost by Shân Saunders (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)

As a visual learner, I work best when I can lay all my ideas out in one place. I used to do this through pen and paper but now, with Ayoa I can do this online! Available both online and as a phone app, Ayoa allows you to create mind maps for free. It is a multilingual service, available in both English and Welsh where you can create as many mind maps as you want to help with multiple different projects or even if there is one plan that you want to split up further.  

Features provided within the app include the ability to begin a mind map from scratch or select from one of the pre-created templates. Within this you have full power over customisable features for example, you can add unlimited branches from your centre title and colour code these according to your project and what makes sense to you! You can also fully edit font and text size as well as the sizes and shapes of each box and change the colour of each branch. If you even decide that a series of ideas and branches need to be a different colour you can change these through the “children” function which will subsequently change all formatting along this branch.  

There are also additional features such as being able to insert emoji reactions to each branch and being able to insert or upload images that may help spark further ideas or reinforce points. You can add notes to certain points to add more information. If you want to share your mind map with others, you can export it as a JPEG and PNG and each mind map that you create will be saved to your Ayoa homepage.

These functions are all available on the free version of Ayoa which is permanently free. There is also a paid version of Ayoa (Ayoa unlimited) which has additional features such as the ability to collaborate live on a mind map as well as share mind maps with others in the app itself. You also gain access to different types of boards including whiteboards and task boards.  

For more information view Ayoa now at: Ayoa – Mind Mapping, Whiteboards & Tasks. Powered by AI.

AU Graduates Digital Skills Profile Series – Week 8 (Manon Rosser)

WordPress User [sil12] Graduate Digital Skills Profile Series, Student Digital Champions Leave a comment

Today we’re publishing our last digital skill profile with a recent AU graduate! Today we’ll hear from Manon who studied History and Politics at Aberystwyth, and now works as a translator. She shares how useful it had been for her to learn how to use Cysill and Cysgeir whilst at University, but how she wishes she had learnt how to use Excel, as it’s a software she uses regularly for her work.

If you would like to learn more about using Cysill and Cysgeir, and about working in Welsh on your computer more generally, read our recent blogpost. If you also interested in developing your proficiency with Excel, you can view this Excel Tips and Tricks collection from LinkedIn Learning.

Keep your eyes peeled in October 2024 as we’ll be publishing a new Employer Digital Skills Profile Series!

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In just a minute: Set a screen time limit! ⏳

Shân Saunders Digital Identity and Wellbeing Leave a comment

Blogpost by Shân Saunders (Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinator)

Whether you’re trying to work and keep getting distracted or sat on your phone before bed and can’t seem to put it down, using the screen time function available on iPhones may be beneficial to you. Accessed through settings and then screen time, there are multiple features to help manage your usage of apps as well as limit communications.  

  1. Downtime 

When activated, if your phone is in downtime this means that only apps that you have chosen to allow and phone calls will be available. You can turn on downtime at any time or you can schedule it to automatically occur on certain days at certain times.  

  1. App Limits 

You can limit usage of not only specific apps but app categories. For example, you can enable that all social apps – including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat etc – have a specific limit of usage on specific days. This is a customisable feature, and you can remove some apps from the category if you don’t want a limit on that specific app, such as if you want to limit social media apps but not WhatsApp.   

  1. Always Allowed 

Through this feature you can customise which apps are always allowed usage even if your phone is in downtime. This includes having the ability to personalise which contacts can communicate with you through phone, facetime and messages.  

  1. Screen Distance 

A feature that you can choose to enable, screen distance helps measure the distance your phone is away from your face and will send you an alert if your phone is too close. This is to help reduce eye strain.

If you’re looking for more tips and tricks in reducing your digital usage, view our student digital champions digital detox results! Please note, these instructions are for Apple only and unfortunately, this function is not available for Android users. If you are an Android user, view our Student Digital Champion’s recommendation of ScreenZen.  

AU Graduates Digital Skills Profile Series – Week 7 (Jay Cowen)

Laurie Stevenson [las60] Graduate Digital Skills Profile Series, Student Digital Champions Leave a comment

This week’s profile is from Jay, who has been involved in practical conservation work with the RSPB since graduating from Aberystwyth. They wish they’d invested more time in improving their proficiency with statistical analysis software, and in learning how to use GIS software during their time at Aberystwyth. There are many courses available from LinkedIn Learning if you are interested in also developing these specific skills:

Statistical analysis:

Geographical Information Systems:

Text only:

When did you graduate from AU?

What did you study? – Zoology

What are you doing now professionally since graduating? “The last 6-months I have had a volunteer position at a Scottish RSPB reserve but I’ve just got a 3-month paid seabird surveying position on the Isles of Scilly with the National Trust”.

What digital skills do you use in your job? –

Data and information literacy- “I have done a lot of data entry and work with Excel and also typing up from written notes into spreadsheets. Also report writing with some statistical analysis but this has mainly been done with Excel as well”.

Digital learning – “Working at the RSPB I have had to use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and I hadn’t used it until I was at the RSPB as it wasn’t part of my course”.

Are there any digital skills you wish you had learnt before you graduated?

“It would have been helpful to have learnt GIS and also maybe some introductory level map making skills and maybe to have different level courses so for beginners, intermediate and advanced for example. I would have also been interested in using image analysis software as this would have been good for my dissertation but also work so for example I could upload an image of a starling cloud and it would automatically count how many birds there are”.

Are there any common weaknesses in digital skills you notice amongst your colleagues?

“Yes statistics, it seemed that for some people it just didn’t click and no more support could be given– just seemed that you need to repeat the procedure. The resources were all there for you to learn which is good”.

AU Graduates Digital Skills Profile Series – Week 6 (Gabriela Arciszewsk)

Laurie Stevenson [las60] Graduate Digital Skills Profile Series, Student Digital Champions Leave a comment

This week we have the profile of Gabriela who has been studying for a Masters in Biochemistry since her time here at Aberystwyth University. Read how she’s made use of her free access to LinkedIn Learning to develop her skills in R (a programming language) and to develop her photography skills, one of her hobbies.

Visit this webpage to learn more about LinkedIn Learning and how you too can activate your free account.

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Learn in your preferred language with LinkedIn Learning 🔊

WordPress User [sil12] LinkedIn Learning Leave a comment

Blogpost by Sioned Llywelyn (Digital Skills Lead)

LinkedIn Learning offers an extensive library of online courses and videos that all students and staff at AU have free access to (learn how to get started). But, did you know that you can watch LinkedIn Learning courses in more languages than just English?

Unfortunately, Welsh hasn’t made the list yet (we’ll keep our fingers crossed! 🤞), but most courses are currently available in the following 13 languages, which may make the content easier to engage with for non-native English speakers.

  1. English
  2. Simplified Chinese
  3. French
  4. German
  5. Japanese
  6. Portuguese
  7. Spanish
  8. Dutch
  9. Italian
  10. Turkish
  11. Polish
  12. Korean
  13. Bahasa Indonesia

How do I search for content in my preferred language?

Watch the video below or follow these simple steps to learn how to search for LinkedIn Learning content in your preferred language:

  1. Start by searching for a course – you can either browse from the different categories or type into the search bar
  2. Choose your language from the language filter
  3. If the language filter doesn’t appear, select All Filters

Further LinkedIn Learning support

If you need any support with LinkedIn Learning, please email the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk), or please feel free to visit one of our weekly drop-in sessions in the Skills Hub, Level D of the Hugh Owen Library.

DigiTip 26: Quick and Easy Screenshot Shortcut 📸

Shân Saunders DigiTips Leave a comment

Do you find yourself needing to take a screenshot of your computer screen? Maybe you need to add a page to your revision notes. There are multiple tools available but with DigiTip 26 we’re showing you a shortcut to quickly take a screenshot.  

You can take a screenshot of your screen by using the shortcut “Windows key + Shift + S”. Then you can either open the screenshot in an editor or copy the image into a document, PowerPoint, OneNote and more! 

Watch the video below for a quick demonstration.  

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!  

Prioritise your digital wellbeing on University Mental Health Day

WordPress User [sil12] Digital Identity and Wellbeing Leave a comment

Blogpost by Sioned Llywelyn (Digital Skills Lead)

In today’s age, most of us rely heavily on technology. While the digital world offers endless possibilities and conveniences, it’s crucial to remain mindful of its potential impacts on our digital wellbeing. As today is University Mental Health Day, it’s a perfect day to share with you a selection of tips and resources to help you achieve a healthier relationship with technology.

Digital-Wellbeing_24Download

We’d love to hear from you! What strategies or resources do you find most helpful in maintaining a healthy relationship with technology?

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