Did you know that all Macquarie staff and students have exclusive access to Lynda.com? It’s an excellent online learning platform with a huge range of courses covering education, technology, professional skills and creative skills, which can help boost your professional development.

Launched at Macquarie in 2016, Lynda.com gives you access to over 6500 professional learning courses, including 11,000+ videos, with 30-40 new videos added each week. Prominent figures and the highest level subject matter experts from both the academic and business world are authors of the content, including professors from world leading institutions.

Students are the most frequent users at Macquarie (the most popular courses are on Critical Thinking, Excel and programming), but there is a wealth of great material that staff can delve into – for inspiration, to get unstuck on a problem or to help foster certain soft skills, like communicating with confidence, developing good body language or how to have difficult conversations.

Don’t think you have enough time to take advantage? Here’s some tips:

  1. Download the videos and listen like a podcast on your commute to campus

  2. Block out a specific time each week in your calendar as professional development time

  3. Just dip in, for short periods, say in a coffee break, for inspiration or to spark an idea

Log into Lynda.com by clicking “sign in with your organisation portal” and sign in with your MQ OneID.

You can search by Course Type, Skill Level, Duration (if you only have 2 mins, you can search that!), Subject, Software, Companies, Authors, or Learning Paths.

Just have to look around and find courses and content that ‘speaks to you’! 😀

After a quick search I found some courses you may be interested in having a look at (this list is just skimming the surface, but it gives you an idea of the types of content):

Teaching techniques and tips

Level Course name
Appropriate for all Blended Learning
Beginner Creating Effective Learning Assessments
Beginner Creating Multimedia Learning
Intermediate Developing Curriculum
Beginner Core Strategies for Teaching in Higher Ed
Beginner Teaching with Technology
Appropriate for all Flipping the Classroom
Intermediate Learning How to Increase Learner Engagement
Beginner Making Learning Accessible
Appropriate for all Gamification of Learning

Tech Skills for Staff

Beginner Learning to Teach Online
Beginner Teaching Online : Synchronous Classes
Beginner Google Apps for Education Essential Training
Intermediate Learning Office 365 Groups
Appropriate for all Team Collaboration in Office 365
Beginner Learning OneDrive
Beginner Prezi Essential Training
Intermediate Keynote for Educators
Beginner Learning Moodle 3.1 (learn to use different features in iLearn)
Intermediate Photoshop for Teaching and Learning
Beginner Redefining Powerpoint for the College Classroom
Beginner SPSS for Academic Research
Appropriate for all Teacher Tech Tips Weekly

Communication, leadership and personal development

Beginner Communication in the 21st Century Classroom
Intermediate Communicating with confidence
Beginner Communication Foundations
Intermediate Influencing Others
Intermediate How to Present and Stay on Point
Appropriate for all Having Difficult Conversations
Intermediate Learning to Say No
Intermediate Body Language for Leaders (Lynda’s most popular course)
Appropriate for all Professional Networking
Intermediate Learning from Failure
Appropriate for all Avoiding Burnout

Really, the possibilities are endless – so go and explore.

Not only can you use Lynda.com for your own professional development, students can participate in thousands of courses to build key skills. If you were thinking of developing video content for your course, check if there’s already a Lynda video on that subject, to save you time and effort. You can link to videos in iLearn like a regular URL. You can also create playlists for your class, which they can use like set readings. And Lynda videos are also discoverable in Multisearch!

Check out the library’s libguides for Lynda for more information.

If you want to keep up with new content, check out the weekly wrap up of new courses on the Linkedin Learning Blog (Linkedin bought Lynda.com last year).

If you’re curious – these are the top 20 most viewed courses at Macquarie over the last year (note, students currently make up over 80% of active users)

Rank Course Title
1 Critical Thinking
2 Excel 2016 Essential Training
3 Excel 2013 Essential Training
4 Programming Foundations: Fundamentals
5 Grammar Fundamentals
6 Project Management Fundamentals
7 HTML Essential Training
8 College Prep: Writing a Strong Essay
9 Python 3 Essential Training
10 MYOB AccountRight Essential Training
11 Online Marketing Fundamentals
12 Content Marketing Fundamentals
13 Up and Running with Python
14 Introduction to Data Science
15 Tableau 10 Essential Training
16 Time Management Fundamentals
17 Up and Running with R
18 Statistics Fundamentals – Part 1: Beginning
19 R Statistics Essential Training
20 Programming Foundations: Object-Oriented Design

If you’ve found a course you think would be useful for other Macquarie staff, share the title and/or link in the comments!

Posted by Geraldine Timmins

I was Communications and Engagement Lead for the Learning Innovation Hub 2017 - 2018 and Teche Editor during that time.

4 Comments

  1. Shahzada Imran 18 May, 2018 at 1:13 pm

    Cannot thank you enough for the list of such wonderful learning resources!

    Reply

    1. Geraldine Timmins 21 May, 2018 at 10:35 am

      Thanks Shahzada, I hope you find them useful.

      Reply

  2. Michael Marston 21 May, 2018 at 10:15 am

    Excellent blog Geraldine, very useful.

    Reply

    1. Geraldine Timmins 21 May, 2018 at 10:35 am

      Thanks Michael

      Reply

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