Winter 2017

Lynda.com

Your Online Tool for Learning New Skills

Jackson Brown

About Lynda.com

Have you ever wanted to:

learn a new programming language,
pick up a new business/workplace skill, or
hone your photography skills?

Lynda.com allows people to attend online courses on a wide range of subjects. Access to these courses is free for university employees. You can learn a variety of skills:

transferable skills such as communication in the workplace and time management,
technical skills such as web designing, using Word or Excel, or programming.

In the fall, ACO co-op students used Lynda.com to learn time management, business communication skills, programming, and web analytics. They found the courses to be a valuable resource for self-improvement. Ethan said that:

“Jumping into something new is always challenging at the start. Lynda.com is a great way to wet your feet and get taught the basics in a easy to understand, clear, concise manner.”

Who can use Lynda.com?

Faculty, Staff, and Graduate Students

The University of Waterloo offers its employees (including co-op students working for the university) free unlimited access to Lynda.com. You can access Lynda.com a local computer on campus, your own personal computer at home, or on a supported mobile device. You can log in using your UW credentials.

Students

Students can be granted limited access to Lynda.com by contacting request@uwaterloo.ca to borrow a Lynda.com account for around 2 weeks.

Outside the university, Lynda.com offers a free 10-day trial and once that trial period is over, you can purchase an account starting at $29.99 a month.

Lynda.com courses

When you visit Lynda.com, you will never run out of videos to learn from. The site includes over 4000 courses on just about every topic, with more courses added each month. These courses take the form of a series of video modules and often include exercise/practice files that you can download and use while watching the courses.

As of 2015, progress in Lynda.com courses can be automatically integrated with your LinkedIn profile, allowing you to show off your skills on the world’s largest professional social network.

Some of the courses offered by lynda.com include:

Foundations of Programming: This course is a general overview that offers very basic information that one needs to know in order to start programming in any computer language. Computer programming languages generally share a lot of common concepts; once you understand the fundamentals, you can easily transfer those skills to a variety of languages and frameworks.

“I wanted to learn some basic programming, but didn’t know where to start until I found Lynda.com and the Foundations of Programming course” – an ACO coop

This course is a great way to start developing programming skills to develop the applications of your choice.
Getting Things Done: Named after a book written in 2001 by David Allen, the “Getting Things Done” method has a strong following. Just about everybody could benefit from better time management and organization in some facet of their life. This course directly from the author outlines a variety of strategies for staying on top of a workload and avoiding the stress that comes with falling behind.
Web Analytics Fundamentals: “Web analytics” is the science of measuring how well your web site is working, and is a key skill in communicating effectively in the information age. This course takes a marketing approach to determine how well your site is drawing in your audience.

The courses listed above are a small fraction of the knowledge available on Lynda.com. No matter what you want to learn, go to Lynda.com and you will probably find an in-depth course on the subject.