Digital Skills and Great Ways to Learn Them

Digital skills are no doubt very much required these days. These are
various skills that you require to effectively function using digital devices and their applications, especially online. Thus, for anyone who desires a rich personal and career life, it is now a must. But to learn digital skills, just like any skill, can be challenging, especially for those who are new to the process. So how can one learn these vital skills? The following steps below will be of immense value in your quest to acquire needed digital competences.

1. Decide what digital skills to learn

In the world today, there are innumerable things to learn and know. It is
akin to entering a university library and you are stark-faced with those
a countless number of books! But you know certainly, you will be attempting on the impossible by desiring to read all those books. So the way out is to prioritize with respect to your course of study and hobby. Similarly, you need to decide the digital skills you will like to learn, whether it is digital marketing, analytics, web designing, or digital photography. In doing this, you must bear in mind the skill’s reward, its relation to your present career or
future aspirations, hobby, and all that.

2. Where to learn your digital skills

The internet is a vast network of information and a great pool of resources.
there are over a billion websites on the net- according to
internetlivestats. So you must arm yourself with ready information on where to gain access to quality knowledge and training on your chosen skill. This reduces your search cost and saves you from poor quality materials or outdated resources. Take note that some sites request some payment for your training, while some are free but may not issue you a certificate. More so, there are many training institutes or centers offline you can approach to be trained too. Thus, choose which is appropriate for your mood of learning, budget, and work schedule. But remember that the future of learning is online. As a recommendation, Google Academy offers many digital courses.

3. Find a mentor to learn

The place of mentoring in any learning is invaluable. No doubt, mentors
make the journey of learning less tortuous. And every field or skill has
persons who have gone ahead with demonstrated success. Such persons should be contacted for help and coaching. Remember that in mentoring, any person who is way ahead of you can provide some form of mentoring in as much as he can transmit value. Again, a mentor need not be physically on ground or even known to you. Sometimes, a request showing interest may be enough. However, for mentoring to be effective, show serious commitment and make the mentoring mutually beneficial. You can send a request to

4. Engage in private practice

Any skill gained not exercised with may remain raw or even soon lost from
dormancy. The saying that practice makes perfect is still in force today and
more so always. So look for ways to engage in private practice. For example, if
If you are learning analytics, register with Google Analytics and see how the
various segments of the program works really. Just reading about it can never
be enough. As such, you need to immerse yourself in it to sharpen the skills and build a strong foundation. You can as well practice with either a friend or
a mentor in any way you can.

5. Discover opportunities to put skills to use    

Depending on your purpose of learning the said skill, it is vital to find
opportunities to properly use the skill. The value of any skill lies in using
it to provide value either for oneself, friends or organizations. This is vital as work done for people especially for organizations can help to boost your resume for better opportunities in the future. Online, there are countless prospect to gainfully employ your digital photography skills, web analytics, content writing, programming, among others. There are now many organizations that require full time digital marketers or search engine optimization experts. You can visit www.upwork.com if you are interested in exploring these opportunities, especially if you have attained an intermediate or expert level with your skill.

6 Teach people

Teaching aids learning. As such, what you know and teach gets deepened. As you teach, you discover your lapses and then try to remedy it by consulting to learn more. As time goes on, you develop confidence and the skills you gain get stuck to you. Teaching complements practice. So accept requests to teach, either paid or not, it is a booster. Interestingly, there are many opportunities online to provide teaching services in almost any skill area.

7. Get certified

With learning, one can never know fully. Hence it is said that the widest room
in the world is the room of improvement. Depending on your purpose of learning, a certification will not only deepens your your skill but also  confers on you a professional status. Although your interest may not be professional attainment in the chosen skill, some certification can give you some legitimacy. But you should not just get certified, ensure to seize the opportunity to really learn. Every day, new developments are taking place. For instance, new tools for programming are coming onboard, even in a particular programming language.

Conclusion

Take note that in your learning of online skills, some of the above steps
It may not necessarily come as mentioned. It is possible for one to get certified
before teaching or even having a mentor. However, see every step as reinforcing one another. More importantly, ensure you embrace every opportunity that appears within your radar before they disappear.