Being digital

Being digital is a collection of short, easy-to-follow activities on finding, using and creating information online, developed by Library Services.

Skills for life online

Working through these interactive learning materials should enable you to become a confident and critical user of digital tools and resources for study, work and everyday life. This set of skills is known as digital literacy. Developing these skills will give you the confidence to work successfully and safely online. Digital literacy is also an essential part of employability.

Activities cover areas such as:

  • presenting yourself to best advantage online and managing your digital identity
  • making the most of online networks
  • knowing who and what to trust online
  • using Wikipedia
  • evaluating and using online tools
  • searching effectively

Each chunk of learning should take no more than 10 minutes to complete, making it easy to fit these activities into your schedule.

Transcript for Being digital: Developing

essential skills for study, work and life online

I’d been doing the same job for a long time now and I really wanted a change. I spotted a great opening,

but it said I would need to be really confident communicating online.

I would be using social media such as twitter. I thought only celebrities did that! It’s a global organisation,

which sounds really exciting. But a key part of the job would be to communicate with colleagues in

different countries using various online tools. I didn’t know where to start!

How could I be more digital?...digital…digital

I came across a useful looking site by the OU Library, called Being digital, and I thought I’d take a look.

Not only did it cover the areas I needed, but I could clearly see which activities would be most useful for

building my online communication skills. I learnt how to manage my digital identity and use the right online

tools to communicate with other people.

Now I can search effectively online, post to my favourite blog ‘groovy-goldfish.com’ and write a cracking

tweet! And because the activities were in short chunks I could easily fit them into my day. Not only did this

help me get the job I wanted but I also found out how to organise my online files so I could access them

anywhere. Brilliant!

Summary screens: Being digital is a collection of short, interactive activities to help you develop essential

skills for study, work and life online. Try ‘being digital’ for yourself www.open.ac.uk/libraryservices/bobbeing-digital

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Facebook: www.facebook.com/OULibrary ; Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/OU_library

Being digital is freely available to anyone.