International Women’s Day 2025 #AccelerateAction

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day! The 2025 theme is #AccelerateAction and is an important message that focuses on speeding up the achievement of gender equality. At its current rate it is predicted that we won’t achieve gender equality until 2158 and so this International Women’s Day calls for us to work together to create a more inclusive world. You can view the resources below inspired by International Women’s Day. These include a selection of LinkedIn Learning videos and courses, please note that the University’s subscription to LinkedIn Learning finishes on 28^th March 2025. If you have completed any training courses on LinkedIn Learning and wish to retain your certificate(s) of completion, please view our previous blogpost to learn more about this.

Code First Girls: Code First Girls is a free online service that is partnered with Aberystwyth University and is dedicated to providing coding courses to help women and non-binary people develop their coding skills.

What is equality? (3m 43s)

What is equity? (2m 19s)

Inclusive Tech: Closing the Pay Gap (53m)

Inclusive Female Leadership (40m)

Does inclusion really change the game in tech? (2m 22s)

The link between inclusion, equity, and allyship (2m 20s)

Unconscious bias (28m)

If you have any issues accessing the LinkedIn Learning videos or courses, please contact the Digital Skills Team at digi@aber.ac.uk.

DigiTip 55: Focus Mode in Windows 11 ⏱️

Struggling to focus when you’re trying to get work done? DigiTip 55 has what you are looking for with focus mode in Windows 11. Focus mode is a new feature for Windows 11 that has multiple features to help you try to concentrate on your work. These include: a timer that can be set to whatever time you need with the default set to 30 minutes, hiding the badges on taskbar apps, hiding the flashing on taskbar apps and turning on do not disturb.

To use this feature, you need to go to Setting -> System where you should see Focus. Once the options are selected as how you want them you just need to click ‘start focus session’ and a timer should appear in the corner of your screen which you can cancel or pause at any time.

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!

Remember to download your LinkedIn Learning Certificates 📥

27 February 202514 January 2025 Shân Saunders LinkedIn Learning Leave a comment

The University’s subscription to LinkedIn Learning will end in March 2025. If you have completed any training courses on LinkedIn Learning and wish to retain your certificate(s) of completion, you have just over a month to download them. You can view this short video for guidance of how to do this.

If you haven’t used LinkedIn Learning before, there’s still time for you to log in and make use of this resource to develop your digital skills! Please visit our webpage for further guidance.

Contact us with any questions 📧

DigiTip 54: Googles Trick and Treat! 🤸🏻‍♀️

25 February 202526 November 2024 Shân Saunders DigiTips Leave a comment

Did you know that there are Easter eggs features on Google? Now you do with DigiTip 54!

If you go to Google and type “do a barrel roll” the screen will rotate.

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!

Our Graduates Top Skills 🎓

19 February 202512 February 2025 Shân Saunders Digital creation, problem-solving and innovation, Digital learning and development, Digital proficiency and productivity, Graduate Digital Skills Profile Series, LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Support, Microsoft Teams Leave a comment

In 2024, our Student Digital Champions conducted interviews with eight Aberystwyth University graduates to understand what skills they now use after graduating and skills that they wished they had learnt and developed while at university. Below are the top five skills across all the profiles that the graduates now use and how you can develop these skills:

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Teams/Online Meeting Platforms

Photoshop and Editing Software

Outlook

Microsoft PowerPoint

If you would like to read the Graduate Digital Skills Profiles, you can view them here or you can download them here.

DigiTip 53: Using Morph in PowerPoint 🧑🏻‍💻

18 February 20257 January 2025 Shân Saunders DigiTips, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Support Leave a comment

Do you want to make your PowerPoints more Dynamic? DigiTip 53 Will help you to do that by using a transition in PowerPoint called Morph which can give more flow to a PowerPoint by giving smooth transitions to shapes and text changing in the slides.

First Open up PowerPoint

Then create two slides, one with normal text and in the following slide split up the letters of the word across the slide. I did this by using multiple text boxes.

On the second slide go to the transitions tab and choose morph

Then still on the transitions tab go to effect options and choose characters

From there press F5 or go to the slide show tab and click on from beginning where you should now by pressing space see the morph transition take place.

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!

International Day of Women in Science 👩🏻‍🔬

11 February 202516 January 2025 Shân Saunders Code First Girls Leave a comment

11^th February 2025 is International Day of Women in Science, promoting the importance of women in STEM and the continued value in providing resources and open spaces for women to develop their skills.

A key resource available to all women and non-binary persons available with Aberystwyth University is Code First Girls. Code First Girls is a free online service that is partnered with Aberystwyth University and is dedicated to providing coding courses to help women and non-binary people develop their coding skills. Code First Girls hosted a session at the Digital Skills Festival 2023, you can watch the session where they discussed more about the programmes and courses they deliver and the importance of their work.

A member of the Digital Skills Team participated in one of the courses provided by Code First Girls, you can read about their experience through their blogpost here. Or you can view their thoughts on the 5 reasons you should sign up to Code First Girls.

If you are interested in learning more about Code First Girls or would like to sign up to one of their courses, visit their website.

Please note that Code First Girls is open to women and non-binary people. If you are not eligible to undertake the courses offered through Code First Girls, there are many other free opportunities available, you can find more information about these opportunities on our free external resources’ webpage.

DigiTip 52: Strikeout Star! ➖

11 February 20257 January 2025 Shân Saunders DigiTips, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Support Leave a comment

Have you ever wanted to cross something out in Excel? Sometimes you don’t want to delete or hide the cells. DigiTip 52 has a quick shortcut to help you out!

Simply select the relevant cell(s) and use the shortcut: Ctrl + 5

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!

DigiTip 51: Become more effective with MS Teams by using commands ⚡

4 February 20257 January 2025 Shân Saunders DigiTips, Microsoft Support, Microsoft Teams Leave a comment

Do you want a faster and more efficient way to navigate MS Teams, for example to let your colleagues know your status on Teams or send a message? DigiTip 51 can show you quick commands to do just this. For this DigiTip we will be using the forward slash commands in the search bar on Teams.

First open MS Teams.

Next, we will need to access the search bar at the top, this can either be done by pressing ctrl + e or by just clicking in the search area at the top.

Then if you press / you will receive all commands available to you to use.

After you have chosen the command you want to use you just have to press enter.

An example of one of these would be /busy which is a faster way of setting your status to busy.

Another example, /chat will give you a follow up option of selecting who you want to send the message to and what you want the message to be, all in the search bar.

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!

DigiTip 50: Become Number One at Notetaking! 📝

28 January 20257 January 2025 Shân Saunders DigiTips, Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Support Leave a comment

Would you like to advance your note taking but you’re stuck on a format? With DigiTip 50 and page templates in OneNote you can do just that!

Microsoft OneNote has the option to insert page templates to help you format your notes. There are templates from simple lecture notes to project overview to prioritised to do lists. Watch the video below to find out more!

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!