Starting to build your technical proficiency

If you are frustrated in your use of digital technologies, it may be that you need to think about going back to basics and considering your technical proficiency. If we consider the lower levels of digital literacy development try to reflect on if you have an awareness of at least all of the tools that you believe you need to do your job, and an understanding of how to at least use these to support you in your role.

How about building more technical skills around actually using digital tools? Slow typing speed can cause frustration, and there are tools to help develop typing speed and accuracy. Typing games allow for development of typing skills in a more fun way than I developed mine years ago with just repetitive practice and learning the keyboard layout. I still do not put my hands where I am meant to when I touch type! Don’t forget that I also offer a ‘Shortcut of the week‘ to try and speed up the way in which you use a computer and reduce the number of clicks.

Do you know a computer is? This might sound like a stupid question, but do you know what each bit does? Although BBC Bitesize is aimed at School children, it is very good for giving a very approachable overview of different elements of a computer. Although this might seem like a big step, some computers now are more like tablets than a ‘traditional’ PC or laptop. Although this might not seem like a big different when you initially use them (as some are very good) some software will not work on ‘computer on a chip’ devices, normally referred to as ‘ARM’ devices.

Something that needs to be introduced early on, is how to ensure your device is secure from threats. If you are reading this as an academic, there is potentially a lot of protected information that you have access to. Even if you do not store this information on your computer and access it remotely, your computer does temporarily download this information for you to access it and it will still be present (even if not accessible) in temporary files that malicious parties could still see. Having an up-to-date operating system (including phones and tablets) does go some way to mitigate such access. You could also consider using an anti-virus, webpage scanner and firewall (normally come together now) in addition to your computers own; a Virtual Private Network (VPN) can also hide your digital footprint and encrypt any data that you access online. There are plenty of Free and Freemium options for these out there, and a lot of Premium subscriptions. I won’t go into all of them, but there are plenty of review websites to support you choose the right one.