Introduction
Hi, I'm Greg Chapman. I teach adult education classes in West Norfolk, UK. These include beginners courses in Web Site Creation and Digital Photography.
The web course aims to get students to a point where they can publish their first web site, while the photography course gets people beyond their camera's "Auto" setting, and able to make further improvements to their pictures through image editing on their computer.
This site is a repository for some of the teaching aids used on the courses and various other hints and tips for new web authors and digital photographers. Listed below are descriptions of the main sections of the site reached from the main menu.
I welcome feedback with questions, and ideas for improving this site, from both beginners and experts.
Web Design
This section of the site covers three elements of the course:
- KOMPOZER
- The main software used on the courses is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, called KompoZer. Its logo is seen above. It is an open source program. This means that it is not proprietary software and any programmer can further develop the program for special purposes. One such development is the portable version. This has the advantage that it can run from a flash drive (USB stick) and does not need to be installed on the host computer's hard disk. Most students, therefore, can bring to class, not only their data files, but their program installation as well. For those with Macintosh computers or Linux-based computers, KompoZer itself, rather than the portable version, is available, so no student need be excluded because of the hardware they have available at home. This section of the site is where I present the more detailed "click this, type that" guidance, but is it always best to have understood some of the theory in the Web Design section first!
- WEB DESIGN
- Every site author has their own views on how to build a site. This section of the site is a combination of theory and principles of good design, and where I express a few personal points of view on the subject.
- CLAiT
- The cost of the Web Site Creation course is lower than it might be as a grant that has been obtained to subsidise it. The grant is subject to the condition that the course includes a nationally recognised qualification. The one selected by Norfolk's Adult Education service is CLAiT (Computer Literacy and Information Technology). This is the section where I will (eventually) present some sample assignments that follow the pattern that can be expected in the Live Assignment, and give examples of how to achieve what is necessary when using KompoZer.
Digital Photography
This section of the site currently only covers the image editing aspect of digital photography.
- The GIMP
- Like KompoZer, The GIMP is another open source package available both for a variety of platforms and also in portable format. This software rivals Adobe PhotoShop, the leading commercial package, and will achieve all that any new digital photographer will need - and a whole lot more! (It's pretty handy for producing all manner of web graphics too, having automated scripts for a range of effects.) This section is where I give some guidance on how to use the program for new users.
Page updated: 10 April 2008