Computer literacy for online study

In today’s technology-filled world, being able to use digital systems is an essential part of studying a CIH Housing Academy qualification. This can be intimidating if you’re not used to learning new things, but we’re here to support you and your learning needs. Here’s some things you’ll need to work on to build up your digital confidence. 

Creating, editing, and organising files 

Whether you’re taking notes, writing an assignment, or saving study materials, organising your files means you’ll be a more efficient CIH Housing Academy learner.  

Apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel are part of what’s known as an office suite, which is a group of apps used for productivity, often in an office or academic setting. Some devices come with their own office suites, while you might have to purchase and download the software onto others. Most apps come with a start-up guide to help you get going and they’ll often have a ‘Help’ tab in the top menu where you can get extra support. 

It’s a good idea to turn on autosave whenever you create a new file so that you don’t accidentally lose your work. When you save your files, create a system of well-labelled folders to help keep your laptop tidy.  

Internet usage 

Accessing the Housing Academy website and learner portal, reading the latest updates in housing, researching case studies for your assignments—all of these wouldn’t be possible without the internet. 

If you’re at home, you should keep your Wi-Fi password near your router so you can find it easily when you need to log on if you aren’t used to being online. If you’re studying in a public place, you might have to ask the staff for the Wi-Fi code and password. Make sure you join a legitimate Wi-Fi network, as hackers will sometimes create fake ones to catch you out.  

On the subject of safety, if you need to research online during your housing qualification, try to make sure that you only visit websites with ‘https’ at the start of the address. The ‘s’ at the end stands for ‘secure’ and means that hackers (or anybody else) will be unable to access any information you share with that website. 

AI usage 

You mustn’t use AI to write your work for you, but you may choose to use it for research. Because AI scours many different sources for the information it gives you, it can be hard to tell if these sources are reputable and if they provide correct and up to date knowledge. Always ask AI to tell you where it got its information from and check the websites out yourself before trusting it.  

My Housing Academy 

You’ll use the My Housing Academy platform to study your qualification, so it’s a good idea to have a thorough look around when you first log in so you know where everything is. You’ll get notifications through the site as well, so it’s important to check in regularly. 

If you need to change any features of the website to make it easier to read or understand, click on the accessibility icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the page. This will bring up the accessibility menu that allows you to customise the pages you view. Digital literacy is easy when you’ve got right the tools to give yourself the best online experience! 

Staying up to date with the latest technologies can be overwhelming, but chipping away at your digital skills bit by bit will help a great deal. You don’t need to know everything about computers to start a housing qualification with CIH, but you’ll need to be proficient in the basics so you can access all the content you need.