Going digital - a great learning curve

Ever felt like the world is rushing round a bit faster these days?

Well I certainly do. The whole social media environment is increasingly taking up a large part of my time and with less time to do more I honestly feel I should be doing things more efficiently.

I am talking about using digital media as a producer rather than just as a consumer, so I was interested to see a ‘Free Government Course in Interactive Media’ advertised on line recently. It was aimed at people working in Sussex.

It turns out that the evening course is just what it says it is: 13 weeks, paid for by the EU, to give people the skills to be more effective in business and in the economy.

For reasons unknown to me the funding is targeted at women, older workers, people from ethnic backgrounds and smaller businesses but in practice, so long as you work in an organisation or business with fewer than 250 employees, you can get onboard.

So what’s it like to go into a college two evenings a week and learn about digital images, the web and interactive media? Well it’s a lot more friendly and engaging than you might think. The students are a cross section of backgrounds, interests and levels of ability. Some seem to have come with a bit of a career in this industry or print and others have no experience at all.

There seems to be a lot of useful information and practical advice for everyone. It is very welcoming with a very ‘from the bottom up’ and bit by bit, methodical approach.

The course is based around three main areas: Digital Images, The Web and Interactive Media.

We have covered a lot of ground, starting with Photoshop and then moved onto Illustrator. I have never used Illustrator before but I am beginning to see why its such useful tool and how it makes light work of a lot of tasks which you could do in Photoshop, but which would take far longer and which would be, to use a technical term ‘clunky’.

Both Photoshop and Illustrator can be fairly complex programmes but the main thing is that I now feel I have a solid grounding in them and a confidence which comes from the practical work.

Completion of the course will give you three BTEC units to add to the CV. There is also the opportunity to take a leap of faith and enrol on further advanced media related courses that are run in the college.

If you want to know more, have a look here - there's plenty of information to set you off and an email contact to book a place for January or Easter.

By Lisa Williamson, Diocese of Chichester

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk