Want to get a digital camera but don’t know what you need?

City College’s School of Media Arts (SoMA) is currently offering free technology seminars to the public “to educate and clarify current technologies that impact our daily lives,” according to fliers.

Seminars include various topics such as buying a digital camera, Podcasting (video and audio), search engine optimizing, television jobs and how to use Google tools.

These lectures will happen almost weekly between March 2 and April 27.

These tutorials, however, are not limited to City College students. Community members interested in Internet media are also welcome to attend.

“We have an e-mail list of people who would be interested [in the seminars],” said Guy Smith, dean of SoMA.

Fliers have also been distributed to students in particular classes related to the seminar topics.

Marianna Mashek, multimedia education center coordinator who is organizing the seminars, said the goal of the SoMA seminars is to help the community “learn specific skills in innovative applications of technology by non-traditional courses.

“In California, one of the fastest growing business sectors is the emerging new media, multimedia, and entertainment industries,” Mashek said in an email interview.

One tutorial that is expected to be a hot topic is search engine optimization.

“Search engine optimization is a huge field right now,” Smith said.

Presented by Peter McEwen, Search Engine Optimizing (SEO) is used when people with Web sites want to get as many page views as possible.

This April 20 seminar will help to maximize how many views by making sure the Web site is among the top listed when gathered by a search engine, such as like Google or Yahoo.

This seminar also includes methods for creating a community of people who will read the Web site, the importance of including other Web sites within your own, and other ways of attracting traffic to your Web site.

According to Smith, SoMA was given a work-force grant to train and educate students about the digital media world. That grant is being put to use in these seminars.

“[The seminars] are purely for student benefit,” Smith said. “Students don’t gain any school credits if they go to them.”