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Digital skills: succeeding in a digital world
Digital skills: succeeding in a digital world

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Week 6: The right tool for the job

Introduction

Have you ever wondered whether there was more to life than deleting unwanted email, or if there’s a better way to timetable those music practices or football matches? This week will give you the opportunity to think about online tools that can help you in your everyday life, whether that’s for work, home or study.

So far in this course you have been introduced to the idea of the information age and you have thought about your own digital presence and identity. You have also been given tips on how to stay safe online. You will also have gained a better understanding of how to find, evaluate and use online materials in an ethical way that respects the other people’s content.

Week 5 introduced you to the concept of your ‘information landscape’ and helped you think about what information sources are most relevant to you in your own particular environment. You were introduced to filtering and evaluation techniques to help you deal with information overload, and some critical approaches to evaluating the information and people you encounter online.

This week develops the idea of your information landscape and asks you to consider how this relates to the tasks you carry out in your everyday life at home, for work, or when studying. You will explore ways that you can do these more efficiently and effectively by either moving the task online or by using a better online tool for managing the task.

You will use similar evaluation techniques to those developed in Week 5 to help you choose the best tool for the job.

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Video 1: Introduction to Week 6
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By the end of this week, you should be able to:

  • find the right online tools for your needs
  • identify the best tools for working with others online.

This relates to ‘Collaborate and share’ in the Open University digital skills framework, and both ‘Digital communication, collaboration and participation’ and ‘ICT proficiency’ in the Jisc digital capabilities framework that you came across in Week 2.