We all know a few people, or maybe more than a few people that find our increasingly technologically driven world quite difficult to navigate. Some of us, such as myself, live with those people. The circumstances we currently live in necessitate the need for technology, which means I have become the technical support for my family. It's a challenge for me to get my work done when I have to show my dad how to connect to his Google hangouts meeting for what feels like the hundredth time. At the start of our work from home, I found myself being called to my dad’s office at least once an hour. After I was finished with my scheduled shift I would sit down with him to go over some of the basics, such as signing a document online, sending an email with an attachment, and creating a Google group. I would not leave his side until I was certain he was an expert at completing the given task. Luckily, things have improved since then. I think my dad takes advantage of the fact that I am a 20-year-old college student who was born into a life with Google. I must say, while being 20 certainly is advantageous, working for the library is equally advantageous. Over the past month, I have explored many of our online resources, and have become very well acquainted with Lynda.com and Universal Class.

Lynda.com

Whether you're a professional who wants to fine tune some skills, or in need of a lot of technological support, make Lynda.com your best friend. Lynda comes to us from the creators of LinkedIn, the popular website used for networking across professions. There are thousands of online videos that range from a few minutes to multiple hours. There are a lot of great tips for working from home, time management, and managing stress, which we could all benefit from right now. The best part of this resource is that it is completely free to access with your library card! There are a ton of videos about the available apps in Google Suite and Microsoft Office, which are two of the most readily used platforms. Next time my dad asks me how to create a google slides presentation I just might direct him here.

Universal Class

Another great online resource that you should utilize is Universal Class. It's free to access with your library card, and there are over 500 online classes to choose from. They range from baking to business professionalism and everything in between. Their Career Training Courses are proving to be incredibly valuable right now. You can join up to five courses at a time and for each course, you can choose to join the certificate class, which includes practice problems and quizzes, or the video only course, which does not include the applied practice. You can become a pro at Excel 2019 in a short amount of time by enrolling in the course.

While we won't be working from home forever, we should all take this time to sharpen our skills and help the individuals in our lives who are technologically challenged. Log onto Universal Class and Lynda.com, and you just might learn something new.