4 LESSONS
Computers, internet and safer accounts
Build everyday confidence with files, search, sign-in and scam recognition.
Follow this series →SKILLS FOR A CONNECTED WORLD
Free digital skills: use technology with understanding
Understand computers, search well, protect your accounts and create useful documents and spreadsheets. Learn through realistic examples and safe practice.
A guided place to begin
4 LESSONS
Create, communicate and think digitally
Work with tables and documents, evaluate AI and choose what to share.
Follow this series →3 LESSONS
Claims, numbers and evidence
Investigate a message, compare percentages and read a chart. Three practical lessons for making sense of everyday information.
Follow this series →Explore every topic
Guides 1–11 of 11
Digital skills
BeginnerDocuments, email and professional communication
Clear communication helps another person understand your purpose and act correctly.
Learning outcome: Create a structured one-page note, improve an unclear request, choose recipients deliberately and verify a document link from the recipient’s perspective.
Read the guide →Digital skills
BeginnerHow computers and files work
A phone and a school computer both process instructions, keep information and exchange files.
Learning outcome: Explain memory versus storage, organise a small project, distinguish copying from moving, and test an offline copy and backup before relying on them.
Read the guide →Digital skills
BeginnerHow to check an online claim: sources, dates and evidence
A forwarded notice, a cropped screenshot or a striking headline can travel further than its evidence.
Learning outcome: Produce a short evidence note that separates the claim, supporting record, missing information and a proportionate next step.
Read the guide →Digital skills
BeginnerHow to read charts: axes, scales and missing data
Two pictures can show the same numbers and feel very different.
Learning outcome: Explain a bar or line chart, detect a misleading baseline, distinguish missing data from zero and write a careful caption.
Read the guide →Digital skills
BeginnerInternet, web and search: finding evidence
A result can look convincing and still answer the wrong question.
Learning outcome: Trace a page request, distinguish a browser from a search engine, read a URL carefully and produce an answer with verifiable evidence.
Read the guide →Digital skills
BeginnerPasswords, passkeys and account safety
Protecting an account involves more than choosing a complicated word.
Learning outcome: Explain password reuse, distinguish a passkey from a device PIN, recognise unexpected sign-in prompts and make a recovery plan without writing real secrets into an exercise.
Read the guide →Digital skills
BeginnerPercentage change and percentage points: read headlines correctly
“Up by 50%” sounds simple until the starting number changes.
Learning outcome: Calculate both kinds of change, detect a changing denominator, and rewrite a dramatic headline into a precise numerical statement.
Read the guide →Digital skills
BeginnerPersonal data and digital footprints
A digital footprint includes what you post, what a service records and what others can infer by combining details.
Learning outcome: Identify direct and inferred personal information, explain cookies and private browsing, redesign an over-collecting form and review a file or photo before sharing.
Read the guide →Digital skills
BeginnerSpotting phishing and online scams
Scams often persuade people to perform an ordinary action for a false reason: sign in, approve a payment or install an app.
Learning outcome: Recognise common persuasion tactics, explain two worked scams, distinguish receiving money from authorising a debit, and prepare a factual incident record.
Read the guide →Digital skills
IntermediateSpreadsheets: formulas, tables and trustworthy totals
A spreadsheet becomes useful when each number has a meaning and each formula can be checked.
Learning outcome: Create a small calculation table, explain relative and absolute references, interpret an average correctly and sort records without separating related fields.
Read the guide →Digital skills
BeginnerUnderstanding AI and checking its work
An AI answer can be fluent, useful and wrong at the same time.
Learning outcome: Explain tokens and context at a beginner level, verify two types of AI error, write an effective practice prompt and protect privacy while preserving your own learning.
Read the guide →No matching guide. Try another word, subject or level, or reset the filters.
Understand the idea. Put it into practice.
Learn through explanations, worked examples and questions with answers. Sources support the lessons and offer a route into deeper study.
Our editorial approach Photograph credits