Category: Visual literacies

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Digital literacies Information literacies Skills Team TechItUpTuesday Visual literacies

Managing your social network

#TechItUpTuesday

I’m sure most of you already know what social networks are so I’ll just go over this briefly. Social networks and/or social media services allow you to network with people who share interests, professions, hobbies, backgrounds, or real-life connections. These services are based online and often have mobile apps to allow users to access the service on the go. If you don’t know much about social networks you can check out our SkillsGuide on social media.

How to manage your social network?

Managing your social network websites can feel like a massive task if not done efficiently and correctly. This is especially the case if you are using multiple social networks and communication apps. The volume of information from social network sites can overwhelm people and make it easy to miss valuable messages and notifications. This can have major consequences if someone posts something inappropriate on your profile or you miss an important message from a potential employer on a professional network. We will be discussing what would be considered inappropriate for your social media when we look into digital employability. Below we have some useful oh wait…..

Ryan Reynolds Marvel GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Now as I was saying here are some tips and tools to help you master social networking, so distractions like this don’t get in the way.

Useful Tips

  • Avoid signing up for email alerts. While useful, these will quickly take over your email inbox. 
  • Some of you may need more accounts for various reasons but if you know you don’t really use some of them perhaps consider deleting them.
  • Think about what you really need to post. Unless your posts add unique value or stands out in some manner, it may go unnoticed.

If This Then That (IFTTT)

IFTTT is an internet service that allows users to create chains of simple conditional statements, called “recipes”, which are triggered based on changes to other web services such as Twitter and Facebook. An example recipe might consist of sending an e-mail message if the IFTTT user tweets using a certain hashtag. There are also Android and iOS apps that enable phone or tablet changes to trigger other activities.

There is also a new companion app called ‘Do’ that can automate tasks on the press of a button. You can use this to automate a lot of your social media management. For example, if you post something to Twitter, you can also get it posted to your Facebook or Google+ account. These kinds of recipes can save you a lot of time. IFTTT also works with productivity apps like calendars, Evernote and OneNote so you can trigger events based on activity on social networks.

IFTTT logo with a link to the site

Buffer

Buffer is a software application designed to manage social networks, by enabling you to schedule posts to social networks including Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. With tools like Buffer, you can limit the need to log in to your social networks by scheduling posts ahead of time.

Buffer logo with a link to the site

Pocket

Pocket is a save-for-later service. The service allows users to save interesting articles, videos and more from the web and other apps for later enjoyment. This means that when you see something you want to view or read later, you can save it into Pocket. This allows you to glance quickly through social networks, apps and websites and save items to read properly later.

Pocket,logo with a link to the site

Social network for work/bussiness

Now we have looked at managing your social network in your day to day life and as a student. However, if you are interested in managing your social network from a business point of view this is a good video for you.

Categories
Digital literacies Information literacies Skills Team TechItUpTuesday Visual literacies

The importance of accessible content

#TechItUpTuesday

As a student, you may not have considered accessible content and adapting your work to make it accessible to everyone. However, this issue will likely become much more important when you enter the working world but even as a student, I think it’s still important to consider this. Perhaps you are making a presentation, you may want to consider if it’s easily accessible for everyone in the audience. Also, if you get in the habit of doing this now it will not only help in your future it will help those who view your work such as fellow students or tutors, especially those with disabilities or impairments. If the content isn’t accessible to everyone some viewers may be confused like this.

Animated GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Over 1 billion people have some form of accessibility requirement. So, the added bonus of ensuring that your content supports these individuals is that the changes will benefit everyone. Using Microsoft Office, Canvas, Teams, and other apps or software correctly directly benefits both you and the person reading them.

Accessible technology benefits everyone, including people with:

  • Permanent disabilities like those listed below
  • Temporary impairments like cataracts or a broken arm
  • Situational impairments like working hands-free and eyes-free while driving
Icons lisitng disabilities including visual, hearing, cognitive, speech, mobility and neural.

Common types of inaccessible content

Some types of content are more accessible than others. Below are some examples of types of content that can prevent people from understanding the information being conveyed and how to make them accessible. Don’t worry as a student you won’t be marked down for not including these in any assignments though it would be useful for those with impairments who may view your work. Again, it is more likely you will have to think more about this in the working world.

  • Images – Won’t be accessible to people with visual impairments so you need to provide meaningful alternative text.
  • Tables – Those who use screen readers cannot read tables in the same way that sighted users can. This assistive technology relies on the table being coded with HTML tags which can then be applied to the table headers.
  • Videos and audio files – To ensure accessibility to everyone, you need to include transcripts or captions. Remember to include descriptions of images included in video content. Captions will help those with hearing impairments to understand the video. Whereas for those with visual impairments transcripts can be read by a screen reader.
  • Links – You need descriptive, explanatory text to help those who use screen readers to be able to distinguish between one link and another.

Microsoft 365 tools for accessible content

Immersive Reader

Immersive Reader is a tool that lets you remove clutter and adjust the font, colours and spacing to aid reading comprehension. This can help all readers but can be particularly useful for anyone with dyslexia or visual stress. The video below tells you how to get started! You’ll find the Immersive Reader button in most Microsoft Office programs and on University Canvas pages too!

Magnifier and read aloud

This tells you how to use Windows 10 Magnifier read aloud & text cursor indicator. These are new Windows 10 Accessibility updates. Magnifier now has Read Aloud from anywhere, and there is an easy way to change your text cursor indicator colour and size 

Office Lens

Office Lens captures notes and information from projectors, whiteboards, documents, books, handwritten memos, or anything with a lot of text. It can also remove shadows and odd angles so that images are easier to read. You can upload document and whiteboard images to Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, and you can save them as PDFs or send them in email.

Dictation

Here is a useful step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to use the built-in Dictation in Word, OneNote, PowerPoint as well as Windows 10. Dictation (speech to text) especially helps those studying or working from home that need this inclusive capability.

How to create accessible content?

You may be wondering “so how do I know what I should or shouldn’t include to make my content more accessible?”. Well, the university has designed a very useful poster that guides you through what you should include or avoid to make your content more accessible. You can view it below or go to this link for a PDF copy.

This is a preview of the poster, please follow links to download PDF for screen-readable version.

Relevant skills guide: Digital Wellbeing – Accessible content for an inclusive workplace

Categories
Digital literacies Skills Team TechItUpTuesday Visual literacies

Advanced digital creation

#TechItUpTuesday

JISC describes digital creation as:

“The capacity to design and/or create new digital artefacts and materials such as digital writing, digital imaging, digital audio and video, digital code, apps and interfaces, web pages.”

JISC Digital capability framework

What do we mean by digital creation?

Previously we have covered digital creation basics through PowerPoint and Word. Depending on what you study and your interests there are more advanced digital creation software’s which some of you may wish to explore. Here are a few useful beginners guides for these software’s some of which you may be able to pick up more easily than others. You don’t need to go through all of these videos as some are quite long but if you are interested in further advancing your digital creation abilities why not give one of these a try.

Suggested digital creation tools/software

These are just a few recommended tools to develop your more advanced digital creation skills. That isn’t to say these are the only tools there are several others you could look into here. You could also learn about these tools or software through MOOCS which are online courses that will be discussed more fully in a later post.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a software that is often used for image editing, graphic design and digital art.

Adobe InDesign

Adobe InDesign is a software that focuses on layout and page design for print and digital media. 

Sketch

Sketch is a digital design app from Mac. You can use it for UI (User Interface), mobile, web and even icon design. 

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based graphics software. It lets you scale down your artwork for mobile screens or scale up to billboard size

Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software used for creating animated films, visual effects, 3D models, and many more. This is a fun tutorial that I have tried myself, it tells you how to make a 3D realistic donut whilst teaching you all the basics of Blender.

How will these tools help in my future?

The ability to use just one of these tools can be tremendously helpful for jobs in any of these fields and more:

  • Web Design
  • Advertising
  • Graphic Design
  • Teaching
  • Video editing
  • Photography
  • Game Design

Digital creation/design permeates much of our society delivering information, product identification, entertainment, and persuasive messages, which is something we will cover in a later post. Having a good grasp of how to use one of these more advanced digital tools may also help you stick out from the crowd when it comes to your job search after University. Employers will like these skills as achieving the speed and agility necessary for competing in today’s work/business environment requires that organisations advance their digital capabilities and creativity.

Happy Homer Simpson GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY
Categories
Digital literacies Skills Team TechItUpTuesday Visual literacies

Making effective PowerPoint presentations

#TechItUpTuesday

Microsoft PowerPoint Logo
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 7d0bf5544c7c7de10df981156d14f306.jpg

PowerPoint is an important part of your digital creation skills. Today we are going to discuss how to use it effectively and create great presentations.

Most of you have probably given the odd presentation at school and you are likely to give more at university and possibly even more in your working life depending on your career path. You may think well my particular field doesn’t really involve presentations so I don’t need to bother. You likely will have to give one at somepoint. For example, even though my main role is writing content like this I did have to give a short presentation when I first started just to introduce myself.

Slide Transitions and Effects:

Transitions and effects often become the focus of attention, which can greatly distract the audience. In addition to this when a presentation contains several of these effects and transitions runs on a computer much slower than the one on which it was created, the result can be slow and often look silly. These effects rarely enhance the message you’re trying to communicate leave the fade-ins, fade-outs, wipes, and dissolves to Hollywood filmmakers.

Project Powerpoint GIF

PowerPoint Graphics (don’t use Clipart)

As PowerPoint is so widely used if you go for clipart graphics it shows a lack of creativity. If you want to use graphics, use your own photographs or better-quality graphics from free image sites like The Noun Project. Screen captures can also add realism when presenting information about a Website or computer program.

PowerPoint Templates are distracting

Templates should be avoided as it forces you to fit all your originality into someone else’s mould. The templates are often distracting and use poor colour combinations. Create your own distinctive look or you could use the university or organisation logo in the corner of the screen. Could you really concentrate on what someone was saying if you were looking at this?

Example of a bad PowerPoint Template

There’s too much text

Slides are great at depicting an idea using graphics or providing an overview. However, they are not good for detail and reading so you should avoid paragraphs, quotations and sometimes even complete sentences. Try and keep to at most five lines of text and use words and phrases rather than full sentences. The audience will be able to retain the key points more easily. Don’t use your slides as speaker’s notes or as a script to read from. You don’t want to write something that ends up looking like this.

Example of a bad PowerPoint presentation with too much writing

Take the audience into account

Many people will often scan a table or graphical image directly from material that was designed to be printed and red off an a4 piece of paper not as part of a presentation. The results are at best mediocre. Print visuals are usually meant to be seen from 8-12 inches rather than viewed from several feet. These images are too small, too detailed and may often have too much text for an effective visual presentation. This also goes for font size for example 12-point font is too small aim for a minimum of 40-point font though sometimes a bit lower may be okay. Remember the audience and ensure all elements of any slide are large enough to easily see

Season 4 Michael GIF by The Office

Technology can go wrong

This is relevant for anything you store on your computer. You never know when equipment will malfunction or maybe you will have to give your presentation on another computer. You should be prepared by having a backup of your presentation on a USB, a compact-flash memory card with an adapter, or even a CD-ROM. In the worst-case scenario, nothing works, and you have no visuals to present. You should still be able to give a good presentation if you prepared correctly as the slides should just be a visual aid, not the main focus. So, make sure you familiarize yourself with the presentation, practice it and be ready to engage the audience regardless of the technology at hand.

Angry Employee Office Destruction GIF

PowerPoint Tips

Now we’ve explored how to make your PowerPoint presentation more effective and what can go wrong why not check out some useful tips for you to use in your next presentation.