Blogpost by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)
*Please read my first blog to learn more about our AU Graduate Digital Skills Profile Series*
Our first graduate interview is with Francesca who now works as a support secretary within the NHS and wished she had been able to improve her knowledge and proficiency using MS Excel before she graduated.
Our Digital Skills Festival (6-10 November 2023) has two events on using Excel for both everyday use as well as working with more complex data sets. For more information, and to book your space on any event at the festival, please have a look at the programme.
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).
Blogpost by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)
As part of a project organised by the Student Digital Champions, we will be publishing a weekly series of interviews with graduates of Aberystwyth University about their use of digital skills in their lives since graduating, whether that is in their current job, Postgraduate studies, or career pathway. We’ll also hear about the skills they wish they had developed further before they left Aberystwyth University.
We will be releasing four profiles this semester, one a week on Thursdays, and the other half will be released in Semester 2. The first profile will be published this Thursday and will be available from this page on the Digital Skills Blog, but in the meantime take a look at the JISC Digital Capabilities Framework, the framework we follow here at AU, to learn what digital skills are and why they matter to you.
Keeps your eyes peeled on Thursday for our first profile!
Do you want to learn or develop your digital skills but not sure where to start? With our LinkedIn Learning digital skills collections, you can now develop your digital skills further with easily digestible courses and videos that are tailored more specifically to what you are looking for. With a variety of content to choose from in LinkedIn Learning, we have developed 30 new collections (15 for students and 15 for staff) to support you all at Aberystwyth University to find the most appropriate content suited for what you want to learn most. Each collection contains 9 resources, and these resources can range from short 3-minute videos to more in-depth courses.
If you have any questions about these LinkedIn Learning collections, please contact the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk).
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.
Luckily, Teams allows you to set your status for a set duration. Take a look at the video below or follow these instructions:
Open MS Teams and click on your profile picture
Click on your current status
Select Duration
Choose Do not Disturb (or whichever status you want to appear)
Choose for how long you want this status to appear
A member of the team will be available each week to support both students and staff at one of our weekly Digital Skills drop-ins.
We can help you find resources that you can use to develop your digital skills; give you general advice about developing your digital skills; and we are also very happy to discuss your Digital Discovery Tool reports.
📍 We’ll be at the Skills Hub (indicated by the star on the image below) on Level D of the Hugh Owen library on the below Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout Semester 1. If you have any questions, please email digi@aber.ac.uk.
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.
On your keyboard, to the left-hand side of the space bar there is the Windows button.
Hold the windows button and then tap any arrow key you would like. For example, hold the windows key and then tap the left arrow key.
This will move your document to the left-hand side of your screen.
You will be shown all the open windows you have to fill the remainder of the screen. Simply select which window you would like to open.
A warm welcome to our Student Digital Champions who joined the Digital Skills Team at the start of September! They will be working with us throughout the academic year to encourage students across the university to develop their digital skills and to provide valuable insights into what support students want.
Noel Czempik
“Hi! I’m Noel, I’m an undergraduate Genetics student with a particular interest in personalised medicine. I’m also a musician and enjoy being creative at work, whether in a lab or a recording studio. My hobbies include painting, interior design, live music, road trips, nature walks, foraging and cooking. I also collect records and ghost figurines.
I applied for the Student Digital Champion role to engage in creative and meaningful work and further develop my digital skills. I’m passionate about the student experience at university and curious about the health and social implications of digital living. I look forward to supporting the Digital Skills Team, particularly in advocating for digital wellbeing.”
Joel Williams
“Hi, I’m Joel Williams, I am a 3rd year student studying geography. My areas of interest are volcanology and the impacts of climate change, focussing on how both impact people. I applied to become a Student Digital Champion because it gave me the opportunity to build upon my own digital skills, whilst also improving the student experience at Aberystwyth University for others.
Since my second year I have been an Academic Rep for my department. I have really enjoyed this role as it enabled me and my peers to voice our opinions to University and then see the tangible results of this. My hobbies include, photographing landscapes and wildlife, Swimming (normally in a pool), and until recently I played American Football for the University.”
Laurie Stevenson
“Hi, I am Laurie and I am in my fourth year of a Wildlife Conservation degree. I am looking forward to working with the Digital Skills Team again this year as a returning Student Digital Champion. I really enjoyed the role last year and how it helped me to develop skills in communication and digital creativity as well as pushing me out of my comfort zone in leading focus groups and conducting interviews. I am hoping to continue to learn new skills this year and I am very excited to be working alongside two new champions!”
🔔 Follow our Student Digital Champion category to keep up-to-date with all the exciting content that the champions will be publishing on our blog throughout the year, in addition to across the Information Services’ social media channels!
Do you want to increase your productivity whilst helping the planet? The Forest App will help reduce your procrastination and distractions whilst giving you the extra incentive to stay productive, by growing trees and earning virtual coins to unlock new plants depending on how long you have stayed productive for.
As your forest grows, you can see what your focused time distribution looks like over time, with various detailed charts included in the app.
With the Forest App partnering with a real-tree-planting organisation, when users spend their virtual coins on planting new trees, the Forest team can donate to the real-tree-planting organisation to create planting orders!
You can download the Forest App through the App Store on iOS and Android devices.
For a quick preview, take a look at these screenshots to see what the Forest App may look like on your mobile device.
