Possessing a series of digital skills is essential to be able to function normally in this world of networks in which, like it or not, we are already fully involved. Nowadays most of us tend to consider ourselves digitally fit because we know how to use basic programs such as Word, Excel or Powerpoint, or because we surf the Internet regularly. Now we will see that this, currently, is no longer enough.
We must develop basic skills so as not to get lost in this practically infinite universe called the Internet and make the most of it in the shortest time possible. So, just as we adapted a few years ago to the arrival of the computer, to the appearance of writing and calculation programs or, more recently, to the emergence of the Internet, we currently have to adapt to this world of networks, incorporating new skills that, in the short term, they will be as or more important than the others.
In this article we will try to teach some of those skills, since there are techniques, tricks and tools to avoid drowning in the digital world. These are relatively simple actions that will greatly help us to make the most of the resources offered by the network:
– Browse to access information and resources
– Perform effective searches
– Find quality information from reliable sources
We will cover these three mentioned skills in this text, while the following two will be explained in an article that we will publish later:
– Monitor the network so that the information is sent to us by the Internet
– Save the information so that it can be easily located later
Know how to navigate
Being digitally skilled means, among many other things, having the ability to benefit from the vast amount of information and resources available on the net. It requires the knowledge and use of tools such as social networks, search engines, aggregators, etc. But the first skill to be able to control all these issues is knowing how to navigate the Internet .
In an article that you can find on this same blog we reviewed the most used web browsers of the moment. Let us remember that a browser, or browser in English, is the vehicle that gives us access to the Internet and through which we can go from one web page to another and, consequently, carry out activities on them.
Know how to search
Knowing how to search the Internet is essential. It is surely the most important digital skill . If we do not know how to search we will miss most of the things that exist on the net. The Internet contains such an enormous amount of information that knowing how to discern what best serves our interests is key.
To know how to search there are a number of tricks and tools that the Internet makes available to us to make our work a little easier. For starters, we have to focus on the syntax of the searches we do on Google, that is, what to write in the search orders in order to obtain better results.
Some time ago we published an article on this topic. In it we explain that the Google search engine has become our main source of information and we show you a wide range of filters and tricks to be able to find the content we are chasing faster.
Google, then, is not only an inventory of results, but also allows navigation by very useful parameters . These parameters allow us to go from a very large search that gives us a very large number of results, to one that gives us a much more reasonable amount. Therefore, knowing how to search allows you to avoid many garbage results that can be found in a search. Thanks to these tools we will achieve depth and efficiency in searches.
Finding reliable information
Finding important and reliable sources of information on the Internet is an increasingly complex and time-consuming exercise. Because of information saturation in search engines, web pages that contain the most prominent information are not necessarily the most visible. So how do you search and find reliable and remarkable information on the Internet? Here are a few key resources:
– Online libraries : they offer free access to millions of documents (books, videos, photos) from recognized and reliable sources ( National Library of Spain , The Free Library …).
– Online presentation hosting platforms ( SlideShare ).
– Specialized blogs : the Internet blogging community is huge. It is important to enter blogs of authors specialized in the specific subject you are looking for. You will find them, in many cases, by searching this topic on Google.
From a first blog you can find links and references to other blogs and other authors, so you can quickly expand your ability to move and access valuable information from a series of reference pages.
– Twitter : is the social network for 140-character micro-messages. For many people it is an essential tool in their day to day. Apart from its more leisure aspect, Twitter is also a great source of information, both current and reflective. Every self-respecting professional is on Twitter, so this tool seems essential to access information of all kinds. In addition, it also serves as a gateway to blogs or specialized websites, through the links included in the tweets . If you do not know very well how it works, in this article and in this we explain it to you in a simple way.
– Google’s specific search tools : the filters that we have previously commented and that will help us to reach blogs, web pages, etc.
These are the first 3 digital skills that we consider key to the efficient management of the information that crosses the network. They are essential to operate normally on the Internet and to be able to take advantage of the unlimited information opportunities offered by the digital world. In a future article we will talk about other skills, such as monitoring the network and saving information easily.
