Introducing The Course | What We Worked On | The Way We Learnt
What We Learnt
How to use a digital camera! This may sound as easy as falling off a log, but there are intricacies such as getting a sensible unfussy background, shooting in artificial light, and getting a half decent portrait that doesn't make you look like count dracula on a bad night....And what to do with pictures More interesting is understanding picture size - measured in pixels, improving and sharpening images and cropping and resizing photos in the programme Paintshop Pro. This is a fascinating process and leads to the all important decisions about saving graphics in compressed formats such as jpeg.
Learn the language of the Web We used Homesite, an HTML editing programme. It is possible to create web sites using the shortcut buttons on the fancy html editing programmes, but Jack takes you through the basic symbols and protocols that make up hyper-text mark-up language. This is sensible because at least you later can understand the mistakes you've made, when the super web site you've created just doesn't work!....And create your first page. Jack uses idiot-proof guides to help you create a home page complete with saved thumbnail photos. The delight when the first few lines appear, in colour, and wonder when your first link actually works cannot be fully appreciated, until you have experienced the deep disappointment when, despite your best efforts, the backslash and tags, don't quite follow the prescribed rules of html.
Record your Voice Once you have got going on the pages, you learn to record digital sound, and again, using a dedicated software programme Cool Edit, you learn to record the tape onto the computer, clear out the ums and ers and glitches, and after amplifying the sound within strict limits, save the wave form as a wav file.
Create graphic images With Paintshop Pro you can create coloured drop-shadow effects in text, which are saved as gif files. At this point the whole course learning is integrated in the production of your finished web pages. Ten weeks of multi- media excitement, finishes with the dramatic uploading of files onto the pavilion provider, gateway to the internet. You'll never be the same again.