We are very pleased to have been welcomed by the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (LTEU) to lead two sessions on Digital Capabilities as part of their Academy Forum programme this academic year. The Academy Forum provides a platform for staff and students to share good practice in learning and teaching. For announcements and more information about upcoming sessions, you can follow LTEU’s Academy Forum Blog.
Part 1 will run on Wednesday 7 December (2-3:30pm), and during this session, staff will be invited to share the different practices they currently have to support their own students to feel confident and capable in using various digital technologies, in addition to the challenges this may entail and approaches to overcoming these.
Please visit the Staff Training Webpage for further details and to register your place. Please keep an eye out for details of Part 2, which will be published soon! For all enquiries, please contact the Digital Capabilities Team (digi@aber.ac.uk).
Blog post by Urvashi Verma (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.
Aberystwyth University’s 10th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, which ran from 12-14 September 2022, brought together a community of teaching and learning practice from across the University, to celebrate, share, and showcase the exciting and innovative approaches that are taking place.
We held a panel discussion (Supporting the development of students’ digital capabilities) on the final day of the conference, with Saffron Passam (Department of Psychology), Megan Williams (Aberystwyth Business School) and Panna Karlinger (School of Education), the wonderful academic staff who were involved in our student pilot of the Digital Discovery Tool last year.
Panel Members: Megan Williams (top-left), Saffron Passam (top-right), Panna Karlinger (bottom-middle). Panel Facilitator: Sioned Llywelyn (bottom-left)
If you missed our panel discussion, you can watch a recording of it here. We gave on overview of the pilot and Saffron, Megan and Panna shared their valuable insights into what did and didn’t work well for them during the pilot, their top tips for helping students to use the Digital Discovery tool, and we also discussed the wider challenges and successes of embedding skills such as digital capabilities within the curriculum.
Further Resources & Support:
If you will be supporting students to use the Digital Discovery Tool this year, please see the new bank of Teaching Resources for Staff (staff login required). You can also book a consultation with a member of our team by emailing digi@aber.ac.uk.
Blog post by Jeffrey Clark (Student Digital Champion)
The perils of the Internet
It’s no secret that the Internet is a part of our everyday lives. From work to social media, many of us find ourselves connected to the Internet in some form or another. Because it’s so commonplace, it’s all too easy to forget that our interactions with the Internet can damage our safety both online and offline. This blog post will go over some ways that you can stay safe while you are online at home or at Aberystwyth University.
Your Digital Footprint
Using social media is a terrific way of connecting with your friends and family. However, it is also important to remember that social media plays a key role in shaping your digital footprint. Your digital footprint refers to activities on the internet that can identify you. There are two main forms of digital footprint, the first being your active footprint, which is identifying data that you deliberately leave online. Actions like uploading a selfie are posting something using your real name all contribute to your active digital footprint. It is important to remember that even if you delete a post you’ve made to social media, it’s never truly gone. One of the best ways to stay safe online is to avoid ‘oversharing.’ Think of it this way, would you tell a stranger your debit card number? Your address? Definitely not! An effective way to remember not to overshare is to ask yourself ‘would I be comfortable giving this information to a stranger?’
On the other hand, you have your active digital footprint, which is data that you unintentionally leave behind. The most common form of this data are cookies, which are small blocks of data that identify your browsing habits. These blocks of data allow for companies to place tailor-made ads on the websites that you visit. While this data is normally harmless, they can reveal private information about you if you share your computer with anyone. Many websites now ask if you want to enable cookies, it is recommended that you disable them if you are using a shared computer or broadcasting your browser contents to an audience (such as in a Microsoft Teams meeting or a livestream.)
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.
We’re offering staff training with the Jisc Digital Discovery Tool to help improve your digital skills and capabilities. We will be providing an overview of digital capabilities, working through the Digital Discovery Tool self-assessment and discussing what resources are available to you as well as the importance of digital capabilities for Aberystwyth University staff.
Sessions will be available in Welsh and English on the following dates:
12 October 2022 (14:00 – 14:45): Getting started with your digital capabilities.
20 October 2022 (15:00 – 15:45): Getting started with your digital capabilities.
Please visit the Staff Training Webpage for further details and to register your place. For all enquiries, please contact the Digital Capabilities Team (digi@aber.ac.uk).
Blog post by Laurie Stevenson (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.
A warm welcome to our new Student Digital Champions who joined the Digital Capabilities Team at the start of September! They will be working with us this semester to encourage students across the university to develop their digital capabilities and to provide valuable insights into what support students want.
Laurie Stevenson (Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences)
“Hello, I am Laurie Stevenson and I study Wildlife Conservation. I am currently undertaking a yearlong research placement focusing on the growth of duckweed as future sustainable protein source and agent for cleaning agriculture wastewaters. My specific interests lie within sustainable and environmental food production and solutions to feed a growing global population under the challenges of global poverty and climate change.
I chose to be a Student Digital Champion because I was looking for something creative to do outside of the lab and I really enjoy creating online content and communicating with other students. I really engaged with and appreciated a lot of the digital content and communication put out by the university in my second year and so I would love to pay that back and make a positive difference to student experiences through this role. I really love Aberystwyth University and I am passionate about helping others to feel the same! In my spare time I enjoy cold-water swimming all year round, I am learning Welsh and I also enjoy road tripping and visiting new places in my car that I have converted into a mini campervan.”
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).
Want to learn how to improve your digital communication skills and especially how to use Instagram to promote your Business or Social Enterprise?
AberPreneurs, part of the University’s Careers Service, are running an exciting online event, Use Instagram for your Business/Social Enterprise– with Kacie Morgan, on 5 September (18:00-19:00). This session will be delivered online on MS Teams.
