Clarborough and Welham IT Group classes are now being planned for Saturday afternoons in October onwards at Clarborough Village Hall, DN22 9LN.
All classes start with a ‘Question Time’ session which provides class members with opportunities to direct what will be addressed during the sessions. Light-hearted exchanges, entertainment and other socialising aspects remain part of the provision too so if you want to meet interesting other folks, do go along!
Members can either take their own laptops or make use of one provided by the group, which have all undergone Ubuntu Linux conversions as well as having LibreOffice and Gimp installed. Classes start with help in installing these applications on members’ laptops and then will dip into examples of how to use free applications and online services to help members expand their skills-set in some fascinating – and useful – ways.
LibreOffice’s Writer – equivalent to Microsoft’s Word – can read and write Word-format documents. The class will begin with basic word processing, starting with keyboard skills and moving on to producing multi-page documents as well as outputting finished items as pdf files for upload to websites or printing services. How to incorporate images in your texts will also figure large.
LibreOffice also has alternatives to Microsoft’s Excel (spreadsheet) and Powerpoint (presentation) so members can ask for these to be addressed.
Writing can have some interesting challenges too – particularly when dealing with foreign languages. Some time ago the group had a class member who regularly wrote to friends he had made in several different European countries. Given his only basic grasps of their languages he had to assume they could handle his mainly English texts. However, after raising this point the group went on to explore Google’s Translate facilities; now he can write his letter in English but then get translations in (for example) German, Swedish and Polish at just the tap of a key!
And then there is digital image processing – whether from your camera or phone. This topic is much too broad to cover here so just a few aspects can include image sharpening, colour management, image orientation, cropping, combining images – the list goes on! All classes make use of Gimp, the free, open-source, equivalent of Adobe’s Photoshop. Finally, Google’s Image facilities will be explored, which help identify the image you present it with, including what and where it is.
If any of these topics spark your interest, do get in touch.
Clarborough and Welham IT Group’s classes resume at Clarborough Village Hall, DN22 9LN, at 1.15pm on Saturday 14th October for the first five-week block of classes, costing just £30.00 for the full five weeks. More to follow in 2024.
To find out more, or to book your place, contact Greg on 01777 700918 or email clarboroughwelham@gmail.com.