Honing Your Skills in a Digital World
Jinfo Blog

By Katharine Reedy

Abstract

Katharine Reedy introduces the role that the Open University's online bite-size "Being digital" activities can play in workplace learning.

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In a fast-changing digital world all of us need to keep our skills up-to-date, but finding the time to do this can be challenging.

Digital Skills in the Workplace

More and more jobs require a high degree of digital skill. Routine tasks are being automated and new types of career are emerging, for example, in the creative industries. 

In the digital world communication, interpersonal and networking skills are particularly important. The Open University's "Being digital" activities aim to support the development of these soft skills for life online. They also cover other important aspects of finding and using information.

Introducing Being Digital

The Being digital site contains a growing collection of over 40 freely-available, online, bite-size interactive learning materials developed by the Library Services Digital & Information Literacy Team. All activities take 10 minutes or less to complete, and can be done on a mobile device or desktop PC.

The focus is less on the technologies themselves, and more on acquiring a critical framework for approaching new technologies and tools. Tried and tested on students and staff, Being digital aims to help learners build their skills in easy steps.

The Flexibility of Bite-Size Learning

Being digital is aimed at learners who may be quite new to a digital environment.

However, the small chunks of learning mean that it also works well for those who just wish to upskill in a particular area, for example, using Twitter - or using Google to search more efficiently. This, and the bite-size nature of the activities, makes it ideal for flexible "learning on the go" in the workplace.

Find out more about the Being digital bite-size concept, the activities on offer, and how you can make the most of it for workplace learning by reading the full Subscription article "'Being Digital' with the OU - Flexible Pathways to Learning".

This Blog Item is part of the FreePint Topic Series "Best Practices in Information Skills Development".

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