Free Access to Online Beginning and Advanced Photoshop and Graphic Design Courses

Written by Nathan Smith on August 31, 2015. Posted in Education, Internet Resources, Tutorials.

At Utah State University, I teach the ITLS 5230/6230 – Instructional Graphics Production I – Beginning Photoshop and Graphic Design course each fall semester. During spring semesters I teach the ITLS 5240/6240 – Instructional Graphics Production II – Advanced Photoshop and Graphic Design. These are blended courses, meaning I teach both face-to-face students on campus, and also online students at a distance. For my distant students, all the course materials need to be available to them online.

One of the benefits of the online courses is that it has the potential to be a resource and a blessing to a worldwide audience. I think it’s safe to say that all of us have taken advantage of great internet resources – especially our students. We are – in a sense – net plunderers (see the TED founder Chris Anderson’s talk – “How Web Video Powers Global Innovation”).

I strongly believe that we need to teach our students to connect, to produce, and become net contributors. We, as educators, ought to be an example for them.

So I’m making my Photoshop and Graphic Design courses freely available to any who would like to learn that skill. Everything is available online except for a few readings that are protected by username and password. There are only a couple things I ask of you in return…

1) If you need to contact me about something – please use the contact form on the website and specify that you are not one of my USU students. I’ll get back with you as I have time available, but my students get top priority – the ones who are officially taking the course for Utah State University credit. Fair enough?

2) I am open to, and appreciate, feedback. If something doesn’t make sense, let me know – I’ll rethink how I present it. If you wish to contribute to the content of the class through YouTube instruction, step-by-step tutorials, etc., please contact me. I want this to be a clear, professional, easy to follow course for any user. I appreciate the effort it takes to become a net contributor.

3) You must not use these materials for your own personal monetary gain! (In other words, you can’t sell it, you can’t repackage it as part of a paid program of study, it must remain freely available!)

I have put well over a thousand hours of work into curating together freely available web content from YouTube and websites, and adding my own YouTube videos and content into these structured courses. I express my deep appreciation to all the other net contributors that have made their materials available online!

I am almost finished with the beginning course (just little tweaks now), and am currently restructuring the advanced course (but my earlier version is still available there). I want to go even deeper into the advanced course than I have previously.

So, here are the links for you – my friends – with my blessing…

Beginning Photoshop & Graphic Design –
http://nmsmithphotoshop1.weebly.com

Advanced Photoshop & Graphic Design –
http://nmsmithphotoshop.weebly.com

Sincerely,
Nathan Smith
Director of Technology Integration – College of Education & Human Service – Utah State University
Director of the Adele & Dale Young Education Technology Center
Director of the NASA Regional Educator Resource Center for Utah
Board of Directors – Utah Coalition for Educational Technology

Nathan Smith

Nathan Smith is Director of Technology for the College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University. In that role, he also directs The Adele & Dale Young Education Technology Center (The YETC) located in room 170 of the Education Building on Utah State University's Logan campus. The YETC is a combination student openaccess computer facility, a K12 curriculum materials library, a NASA Educator Resource Center for Utah, and a technology training center. Nathan served eight years (20042012) on the Board of Directors for the Utah Coalition for Education Technology (UCET) He was reelected in 2014 to serve another two year term on the board. A former elementary school teacher, Nathan has taught students every age from young children to senior citizens. He has had the opportunity beginning in 2011 to train international high school teachers from all over the world about technology in education, through the U.S. State