The Skills Toolkit curated by UK Government
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    Free Online Courses

    Description

    A new online learning platform to help boost the skills of the nation while people are more at home, has been launched by UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.

    Free courses are available through a new online platform hosted on the gov.uk website, called The Skills Toolkit. The new platform signposts users to free, high-quality digital and numeracy courses to help build up their skills, progress in work and boost their job prospects.

    These are the skills which are highly valued by employers and sought after in a wide range of jobs. With more people expected to be working and studying remotely in the coming months, the platform offers a great opportunity to learn new skills to help to get ahead online and gain the knowledge we’ll all need for the future. The platform also offers employees who have been furloughed an opportunity to keep up their skills development while they are at home.

    Courses on offer cover a range of levels, from everyday maths and tools for using email and social media more effectively at work to more advanced training. Individuals will be able to access courses helping them to create great online content developed by the University of Leeds and the Institute of Coding, to understand the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing from Google Digital Garage and to learn how to code for data analysis from the Open University. All courses are online and flexible, so people can work through them at their own pace.

    The Skills Toolkit is designed to help people gain new skills while they are at home and to boost their confidence. The courses have been selected on the advice of experts and leading employers to make sure they meet the needs of business, not just for today but in the future.

    The Skills Toolkit highlights a select list of introductory, intermediate and advanced course options.

    Find introductory courses

    Introductory courses help you learn to use the internet safely for everyday tasks, like finding information, connecting with friends, internet shopping or using online services.

    We’ve put together links to several collections of courses that teach you the basics and give you the confidence to take your next steps in the digital world.

    Make It Click

    • Description: Tools and resources to help you build skills for using social media, email or make working from home easier. Learn to use applications like Word, PowerPoint and Excel and know how to stay safe online. Improve your digital skills for things like creating a CV, running a webinar or using online services.
    • Provider: Good Things Foundation
    • Level: Introductory
    • Approximate study time: Bite-sized resources from a few minutes to a few hours

    TrainingMatchmaker.com is an online centre of Good Things Foundation and a Make it Click learning facilitator. Should you register as a user of the Make It Click platform please do remember to note the online learning centre number of TrainingMatchmaker.com – 8003411

    Learn My Way

    • Description: Resources to help you get started online. Find topics from getting to grips with your computer, tablet or mobile phone to how to use office programs like Excel, Word and PowerPoint. You can also learn to manage your money, use public services or find jobs and careers advice online.
    • Provider: Good Things Foundation
    • Level: Introductory
    • Approximate study time: Bite-sized resources from a few minutes to a few hours

    Learn for Everyday Life

    • Description: Build your own course with a selection of lessons on a variety of digital skills from how to master video calling, dealing with online fraud, presenting yourself online, improving your CV and working with others safely online.
    • Provider: Lloyds Bank
    • Level: Introductory
    • Approximate study time: Bite-sized lessons from a few minutes to a few hours

    Numeracy

    Introductory numeracy courses can help you to improve your confidence with maths for life, learning and work. Being confident with numbers may also help you to take up learning new digital skills.

    Everyday Maths

    • Description: Refresh your maths skills to help with everyday life or get on in your job. From using a calculator, learning to convert fractions to decimals and understanding percentages, to measuring objects, distances and weights. Understand how to use tables, diagrams and charts. You’ll get lots of practice using the maths you need in daily life.
    • Provider: OpenLearn
    • Level: Introductory
    • Approximate study time: 48 hours

    Find intermediate courses

    Intermediate courses are for you if you already have some digital skills. They are a chance for you to build on what you know already and develop new skills like using online tools for business, producing online content and more.

    Create a Professional Online Presence

    • Description: Explore how to present yourself professionally online. Find out more about different social media platforms and how the way that you conduct yourself online can impact your professional reputation. Learn about safety and privacy and the ways that your online activity might be viewed by different audiences.
    • Provider: FutureLearn
    • Level: Intermediate
    • Approximate study time: 4 hours in total over 2 weeks

    Thriving in the Digital Workplace

    • Description: Boost your confidence and build the skills you need to use digital technology in the workplace. Explore jobs that need digital skills through real life case studies. Get to know what digital skills you’re most likely to need in the future to stay one step ahead and develop techniques to enhance wellbeing and resilience at work.
    • Provider: FutureLearn
    • Level: Intermediate
    • Approximate study time: 12 hours in total over 6 weeks

    How to Create Great Online Content

    • Description: Find out about different types of online content and what makes them effective in different situations. Discover the importance of tone, style and format in your communications, and develop best practice for communicating effectively online.
    • Provider: FutureLearn
    • Level: Intermediate
    • Approximate study time: 4 hours in total over 2 weeks

    Presenting Your Work with Impact

    • Description: Learn to create and present engaging content clearly and confidently in a range of situations, like in interviews and business meetings. Explore different types of presentation software and learn techniques to convey your ideas with confidence.
    • Provider: FutureLearn
    • Level: Intermediate
    • Approximate study time: 4 hours in total over 2 weeks

    Digital Skills: Social Media (for business)

    • Description: A course for those wanting to use social media effectively to develop their entrepreneurial skills, to enter the workplace or to change career. Learn how to use social media to establish and improve your brand, set campaign objectives and identify your target audience. Create engaging content and discover the best places to pitch it.
    • Provider: FutureLearn
    • Level: Intermediate
    • Approximate study time: 2 hours in total over 2 weeks

    Find advanced courses

    Advanced courses cover more technical or higher level skills like coding, digital marketing, cyber security and more. These courses range from introductions to advanced concepts to help you master these skills.

    Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

    • Description: Learn how to market goods or services online through a series of short video tutorials and knowledge quizzes. The course covers topics like creating a website and getting it known, marketing your business locally and internationally and advertising using social media. There are modules covering how to sell online as well as how to analyse the success of your marketing plan.
    • Provider: Google Digital Garage
    • Level: Advanced
    • Approximate study time: 40 hours

    Learn to Code for Data Analysis

    • Description: Learn how to write your own computer programs, one line of code at a time. Find out how to access open data, clean and analyse it, and produce visualisations, and how to present your analyses, privately or publicly. You’ll be coding in Python, a widely used programming language across all disciplines.
    • Provider: OpenLearn
    • Level: Advanced
    • Approximate study time: 24 hours

    Programming Essentials in Python

    • Description: Learn how to code in Python: an object-oriented programming language used by small companies to tech giants. Gain skills to write your own computer programmes, or to design a web or desktop application. You don’t need to have any previous programming experience or knowledge to do this course.
    • Provider: Cisco Networking Academy
    • Level: Advanced
    • Approximate study time: 70 hours

    Introduction to Cyber Security: Stay Safe Online

    • Description: Learn how to stay safe online at home and at work. The course will help you to recognise cyber threats and the steps to take to reduce your risks online. Find out about malware, viruses, trojans, network security, cryptography, identity theft and risk management.
    • Provider: OpenLearn
    • Level: Advanced
    • Approximate study time: 24 hours

     

     

     

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