To Arvi, Sonya, and everyone who wants to create their own courses:We're still in the middle of updating our Support Helpdesk and the Little Reader Manual for the new features in v3, so while those instructions are not yet ready, you may refer below:
** Important Note: Before you can start creating your own courses, you MUST create your categories first, except if your course will be based on categories that you already have (e.g., if you're using the same categories that came with your BrillKids content).
How to create your own courses in Little Reader v3:1. Go to the Play & Edit screen, choose Courses. Click on NEW (just below the "Display" dropdown) to open the Create New Course window
2. In the "General Course Settings" section at the top, type in the Name of your new course (e.g., "German Semester 1"), set the Length ("No limit" or a specific number of days), the Starting Day (in most cases you can just leave it at "1"), and the Day Display Format. You can leave most of these settings as is, and simply add in the Name for your new course.
3. Next, go to the Session 1 tab. If you want to change how the session is labeled (e.g., in your course's language), click on the small button on the right side of the tab, then choose Rename and type in the new session name.
4. Click on NEW (bottom left corner of the window) and select from different types of lessons (Picture Flash, Multisensory, Sight Words, etc.). Just like the "Session" tab, you may rename the lesson label as necessary.
5. Next, you need to add categories for your new lesson. Click on the "Add Categories" link inside the Category List box, or click on EDIT CATEGORY LIST. From the window that opens, select the categories you want to include from the left-hand box and click on the Right Arrow button (->) to add the categories to the box on the right side (you need to add in all the categories you want to include in the course). When you're done, click SAVE.
6. Next, set your lesson's settings, which are found on the rightmost side of the window. Here's a brief explanation about each setting:
Lesson Settings- Title Slide - it's the first slide that appears when you play the lesson (e.g., "Multisensory," "Pattern Phonics," etc.). If you don't want to show the lesson's title slide, just set it to "Off."
Display Settings (can be set for each or several categories in the lesson)
- Same As Category Above - as the name suggests, it means that if you enable this setting (by checking the box), all the settings from the previous category in the list will apply
- Category Starts - you can choose "Auto" so that the category will start as soon as the previous category ends in the course, or specify a day
- Word items to show each time - choose how many words should appear for the selected category for each day in the course
- Rotation - choose to add or remove (i.e., "retire") a word or more words each day the category appears in the course, or specify how many days the category will appear in the course (LR will automatically determine how many words will appear depending on how many days you've set)
- Playback Settings Preset - choose a playback preset you want to apply for the selected category. There are several presets included in LR that you can use or you may choose to add your own presets.
Note: Repeat Steps 4-6 if you want to add more lessons to your the session.
7. To add another Session, click on the green + button at the upper right side of the window. To add another Session that has the same lessons and presets in Session 1, click on the arrow button beside + and choose "New with settings from..." (you will still be able to edit the new session as you see fit).
8. When you're done with all your changes, click on View Schedule to preview how each day will be laid out with your current settings. From the preview window, you may print out a copy of your course schedule.
9. Click on SAVE. When asked, choose to "Generate Lessons" and LR will save your edits and automatically generate your course. Note that you need to re-generate your course whenever you edit the course settings. Generating your course will also update the Progress Diary screen.
TIP: To see an actual example of how you can create your own course, the best way is to check out the
new English (US) curriculum! In the Play & Edit screen, select "BrillKids English Semester 1" or the Sem 2 course (if you've imported the new content already), then click on EDIT. If you did a clean install of LR v3 (i.e., you uninstalled v2 completely before installing v3), you can also Edit the Trial course and see how the course is laid out.
@Waterdreamer: The LR v3 changes will not directly affect the lessons you have in the Little Reader Touch app. The lessons in the app will be updated too, but those updates will be available at a later date (once the course updates are released, you'll see an "Updates" section in the Download Lessons screen).
@pearl_river: Your Chinese content will still work in LR v3, but it won't have the same updates as the English course just yet. Do rest assured that you can use the new English course and your Chinese course in LR v3.
@MamaOfWill: Can you kindly send us the following so we can troubleshoot:
1. A screenshot of the error (only if you see the error again)
2. Your backup file (if you created one before updating to v3)
3. Your diagnostic report
Simply send the files as an attachment when you email us at support[at]brillkids[dot]com
To remove the words that appear below pictures (or videos), go to the Playback settings window's "Advanced" tab and in the "Picture/Video Slide" section, un-check the box(es) next to "Show words with"
Digg
