I've been working hard the past few days on my new big project! I'm finally getting my material organized and wrote a 'working' course outline. I'm learning to use PowerPoint and Acrobat.com today. To get a link to paste on this website I had to basically do all these things from the beginning with very little prior knowlewdge of the programs and processes I would have to use:
- Prepare the material in a PowerPoint presentation using SnagIt Screen Captures and text I write. To give you an idea of how long that takes, consider that it took me about 20 hours to paint one apple and make the slides about how to do it.
- Writing the course outline up to the first assignment and making sure all the skills needed to complete it successfully have been covered up to that point- took about 8 hours.
- I have tutorials already written on many of those skills, but they need rewriting in some cases and polishing in others. That should go faster now that I have figured out a process. Even so, that is probably about 40 hrs. work.
- then the whole PDF thing had me a bit stumped. I figured out how to turn my PowerPoint presentations into PDF's, then couldn't figure out how I was going to put them on my website. Took me nearly a whole day on that one, plus researching programs that would allow me to share my screen,(looking for free or low cost ones. Found a good one I thought would work, until we realized we would have to disable our firewall (while it was being shared, not forever) and reconfigure some router stuff to do it. It just seemed a little too invasive and hazardous. So, scrap that idea for now. I would like to get Go To Meeting, because I've used it before and it's easy to do. Now the plan is that once I sell some PDF's of my course, I can afford the GoToMeeting and can expand the teaching products to hands on tutoring help, and support of the course information.
- the problem was to get the PDF' s onto my website in some way. I wasn't even terribly worried about how they could be paid for at that point.
- Dan assures me I can post the html for a PayPal button on my blog though, so that will be a possibility!
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I finally figured out that the PDF's have to be published somewhere first, so I can get a Link (a URL) to them to embed on my website. Acrobat.com was the answer to that one, althouh only a temporary one because you can only do 5 free PDF's before you need to upgrade to the Premium Acrobat.com that lets you have unlimited PDF's and a number of other useful things. My husband says he has it on his laptop, so I may be able to post them from there! You know for someone who is technically challenged I sure manage to learn how to get the things I want to done! :) If I see someone else is doing a cool thing, then I know it's possible to do things. It just takes me a bit of time to figure it out. Add that to a zero budget for additional computer stuff right now and you see why I have to be really resourceful.
I'm writing this here because 'It is All Part of the Learning Experience.' I may figure out a better way tomorrow or someday down the road, but for now I feel like I'm getting somewhere and that is half the battle in figuring out things for new projects! This has been one of my main goals for the past two years. I have been working towards this all along, and now feel confident that there are lots of things I could teach beginning and intermediate digital painters using Corel Painter. I realize my teaching and presenting style need work, but I know that the more I do it, the easier it gets. Having used and developed my own painting techniques for some time now, I know I can help others learn skills that they can can build on to develop their own painting style!
I hope you will join me on the exciting journey into this new experience by keeping up with the progress posts I will be writing about this project! I hope you do
download the Sample lesson segment and
give me your opinion on it. I
need your feedback to make this course as useful as possible for you! I plan to have a few Beta Testers too, of course, but my loyal readers are the ones I really need feedback from too! Tell what to fix, ask me why I did it that way, ask for clarification, need more info, too much info... you get the idea!
Please help me out if you can! Thanks in advance for your help and support!
UPDATE: On yesterday's Apple from Lesson One Segment One:
I found some apples I had painted on Purple Jug and Apples that I liked much better than the one I did that lesson segment on yesterday. So, that one will be scrapped and I'll do one one the new apple I did today.
Here they are side by side. New on the left. Which one do you like?
