LVS Online Classes
LVS Online ~ Where Learning is Fun!

Photoshop Elements 9: The Journey Begins, Part 2

February 3rd, 2011 lvs

The Photoshop Elements 9: The Journey Begins, Part 2 online class covers both the Windows and Mac versions of Photoshop Elements 9., is the second part of the Photoshop Elements 9 Basics class, The Journey Begins. You must have taken Photoshop Elements 9: The Journey Begins Part 1 class to register for this class. This class builds on what was learned in the first part of the course, and picks up where it left off with the second lesson in Selections. We will also learn about layers. These are two of the most important skills you need to conquer to be truly effective in using Photoshop Elements to its fullest!

Posted in In The Spotlight | No Comments »

Photoshop Elements 9: The Journey Begins, Part 1

December 16th, 2010 lvs

This online class is all new for Photoshop Elements 9 for Windows and Mac software. Photoshop Elements 9: The Journey Begins, Part 1 is the first of a two part online course. You will learn the tools and interface, using the Effects palette and how to set preferences to make Elements work your way (as well as how to reset corrupted preferences). You will learn about selections and using Save for Web and much more!

Posted in In The Spotlight | 4 Comments »

Organize Your Life Online Course

December 13th, 2010 lvs

Can you find anything in your home or office in 5 minutes or less? If you can, you are definitely on the organized track and likely are taking this course to fine tune your skills and get some new ideas to make your life more streamlined.

Many others, however, struggle to find papers, bills, glasses, keys and a myriad of other items. Many of us have things in our homes, in our closets, on our desks that have not been used in the past 12 months. Of all our belongings, we use 20% of them 80% of the time! Can we consider during this course to let go of some of the 80% of the stuff that we seldom if ever use? This 80% adds substantially to the disorganization in our lives. This 20/80 formula can be applied to the papers in our homes, the files in our drawers, the gadgets in our kitchens, and the clothes in our closets. If we follow this line of thinking further, then we can extrapolate from that that approximately 50% of the items we are storing in our homes are merely clutter!

So many of us are like the majority of the people in North America over run with stuff and struggling to find enough time in our days to manage our schedules and get our tasks completed!

Organize Your Life online class is for anyone interested in finding tools to assist in organizing their homes, their paperwork and their lives.

Organize Your Life by being freed from wasted minutes. Enjoy more time with the tasks in life that give you meaning. More time with your family, your friends, to take courses, to golf, to read, or to do nothing at all! We will work together to find the necessary minutes in the day to have some fun, rest and relaxation, and yes – fun is a necessity!

Posted in In The Spotlight | No Comments »

Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS – Part C

December 10th, 2010 lvs

Posted in In The Spotlight | No Comments »

Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS – Part B

December 9th, 2010 lvs

This online class builds on what you learned in the Build Your Website II – Part A online class. In this Part B of the intermediate class, separating presentation from structure will continue to be important and external style sheets will be used. The importance of validating your pages will be stressed. Another very important concept in web design will be introduced: Server Side Includes. Server Side Includes (SSI) were first developed to allow Web developers to “include” HTML documents inside other pages. You can you can use SSI to write your website content once and use it in multiple locations. Using server side includes is very easy and can make it much easier and quicker to update your pages.

Posted in In The Spotlight | No Comments »

Let Your Imagination Fly with Art of Collage Online Class

October 14th, 2010 lvs

The Art of Collage is a fun class that enables you to let your imagination fly. Create an image by adding photographs, application of various Painter media, embellishing with textures of different kinds. Learn a few tips and tricks making good application of Painter’s wide variety of applications.

Start from a basic Collage with photographs from your garden, make a great fun poster, a beautiful composite image of your city or favorite place and finally, a portrait style Collage that could be a wonderful keepsake.

Digital Collages can be created and used for many things. Backgrounds, images, create greeting cards or make a great canvas as a wall-hanging. It’s all up to your imagination what you would like to do.

Below are just a few examples you can create, plus your very own creations.

Come and join me in this interesting concept of Digital Collage in The Art of Collage online class.

Posted in In The Spotlight | No Comments »

Drupal Basics II Online Class

September 29th, 2010 lvs

The Drupal Basics II online class will teach you the basics of these very important Drupal modules: the Content Construction Kit, Views, and Panels. The Content Construction Kit allows you to add custom fields to existing content types and create your own content types. Views can be used to generate reports, create summaries, and display collections of images and other content. With Panels you can create customized layouts for your pages and views, even your home page.

In this Drupal Basics II online class we will use these modules and a few others to create a photo site. This should be a really fun way to learn how to use some very important contributed modules that have lots of different uses.

These lessons will take you step by step through the development of your photo site. You should have previous experience with Drupal by taking the first Drupal Basics class where we built a blog or by having similar experience with creating content, links, menus, blocks, taxonomy, setting up users, user roles, permissions, comments, selecting themes, and enabling modules. If you have not done a majority of these things, you may want to consider taking the first Drupal Basics class first, then taking this class during the next session.

You may have already done some online photo sharing on different sites on the web. The first photo sharing sites originated during the mid to late 1990s primarily from services providing online ordering of prints, but many more came into being during the early 2000s with the goal of providing permanent and centralized access to a user’s photos.

Have you thought about different uses for a photo site? Here are just a few ideas:

• SCRAPBOOKING
• HOBBIES
• CLASS REUNIONS
• ARTS AND CRAFTS PORTFOLIO
• PHOTOGRAPHY
• GENEALOGY
• SCHOOL EVENTS
• WEDDINGS
• DISPLAYING DIGITAL ART AND GRAPHICS

Use your imagination and you’ll find dozens of ideas for uses of this type of site.

The Drupal classes are instructed by Yvonne Zaborac who has a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems with a major in Computer Science.

Posted in In The Spotlight | No Comments »

Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS – Part A Online Class

September 28th, 2010 lvs

This online class builds on what you learned in Build Your Website I online class. In this first part of the intermediate class, you will learn a very important concept in web design: separating presentation from structure. This separation is important in the design process. It allows you to change your content without affecting the look of the site. You can add pages to your site without the need to style those pages. A big advantage comes when you want to change a design element on your site. Instead of changing it on every page, you only need to change it in one file and all your pages will be affected by that change. In the Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS – Part A Online Class, you will increase your CSS skills while working with lists, creating fancy forms, creating a tableless layout with a header and footer, designing delightful menus, and many other things.

The Build Your Web Site II – More XHTML & CSS class is rewritten November 2010 by Yvonne. This is an intermediate class with a Part A and Part B series.

Posted in In The Spotlight | 1 Comment »

Web Typography Online Class

August 26th, 2010 lvs

Typography is the practice of arranging type within a design. When you design a page for print, you control the size of the paper and the placement of the elements. On the web the size, resolution, fonts, and even the layout of your page can vary with the browser and the system used to view your site.

Web Typography is going through considerable changes. New techniques along with new web browser capabilities are giving Web Typography new life. This Web Typography online class will take a fresh look at Web Typography and explore all the new possibilities that are available. Some things we will discuss include:

• Web safe fonts and downloadable fonts
• New web font services
• Using emphasis, contrast, and scale
• Practical methods for achieving quality typography with current technologies
• Best practices for creating appealing designs using typographic style principals developed specifically for the Web
• Future of web typography

When you finish this Web Typography online course you will be able to use Web Typography to transform your website into a work of art.

Posted in In The Spotlight | No Comments »

Web Accessibility Online Class

August 24th, 2010 lvs

The Web is an increasingly important resource. It is essential that the Web be accessible to everyone. The Web must be accessible in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with disabilities. The Web offers the possibility of greater access to information and interaction with others for many people with disabilities. Currently most web sites have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for many people with disabilities to use the Web. Web accessibility is about making websites accessible so that people with disabilities can navigate and interact with others on the Web. Websites should be designed so that people are not excluded from accessing the content and services provided on the Web.

A key principle of Web Accessibility is constructing web sites that are flexible and can meet different user needs, preferences, and situations. Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the Web including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities. Web accessibility also benefits people without disabilities in certain situations, such as people using a slow Internet connection, people with temporary disabilities such as a broken arm, and people with changing abilities due to aging. Millions of people have disabilities that affect their use of the Web.

Before anyone can make their web site accessible, they must understand accessibility, learn how to implement accessibility, be committed to ensuring accessibility, and understand their legal obligations. The Web Accessibility online class is meant to be an introduction to Web Accessibility including:

• An overview of accessibility laws and guidelines
• An overview of different browsing technologies
• How to code accessible websites
• How to test your sites for accessibility

How can you make your web site more accessible? This isn’t difficult to accomplish and doesn’t require anything more than your normal tools: XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, or whatever else that you normally use. All you need to do is, use these tools in the right way, and remember the guidelines that exist to help you keep your websites accessible and the laws that enforce web accessibility around the world. Yes, there are Accessibility laws, and companies have gotten sued for not having an accessible web site. Accessibility is a legal concern that must be considered at all stages of web development.

Who is this class for? This Web Accessibility online course is for anyone that has a web site, designs web sites, or is responsible for the web sites of others. You will learn design principles that you can immediately apply to your web site to make it more accessible.

Posted in In The Spotlight | No Comments »