ACOM: Web Design Tutorial Site

Main ACOM web site

ACOM (Computing for All) is the name of the team at Leeds University responsible for cross-disciplinary courses in IT skills. We believe we offer a flexible, sophisticated package of teaching, not a standardised package of "skills" which teach students little more than "which buttons to push". In ACOM we also ask why particular buttons should be pushed - or not pushed.

ACOM's teaching also works at many different levels; from the absolute beginner through to complex work involving, for instance, the integration of different Office applications, graphic design package, non-English texts, Machine Translation, and online bibliographical research. We also offer non-technical components on the political, social, philosophical and legal issues surrounding IT.

We also ensure that teaching is tailored to the individual student. Students can pick their own route through the material, and pick options relevant to their own studies, skills or interests. Note also that our members of staff are drawn from many backgrounds which include, but are certainly not limited to, traditional computing: we include staff with a backgrounds in Philosophy, Politics and Physics, for instance.

In short we believe that ACOM offers a far more rounded, flexible and applicable programme of IT skills teaching than is usually the case. Learning about "Information Technology" also should mean learning about information, and how the technology relates to it - but this is rarely done.

For more information please look at the main ACOM web site. ACOM is administered by the Leeds University School of Computing.

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About Drew

Dr. Drew Whitworth is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Leeds. He has been teaching on the ACOM programme since 2000. He was a computer programmer in the financial sector until 1992 when he left to travel through Europe - on his return he started at Leeds University and passed through every level of the system until passing his PhD in Politics in 2001. Research interests include: politics of the "information society"; web design as political communication; the nature of "cyberspace"; democracy in the "information society"; virtual and physical environments.

Selected Publications:

2001: "Ethics and Reality in Environmental Discourses", Environmental Politics 10/2, pp. 22-42.

2002 (with Pete Reffell): "Information Fluency: Critically Examining IT education", New Library World 103, pp. 427-435.

2003: "Communicative Rationality and Decision Making in Environmental Organisations", Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 24.

2003: "Reclaiming the Virtual Public Sphere: The Philosophy and Practice of Teaching Web Design", paper presented at 11th International BOBCATSSS symposium on Library and Information Science, Torun, Poland, Feb. 2003.

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