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Author Topic: Little Reader suggestions - Help us improve Little Reader!  (Read 25674 times)
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KL
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« Reply #15 on: October 22, 2010, 09:40:54 AM »

Hi Everyone, please post your thoughts on these and any ideas that you can think of.

This is a great community and together, over time, we can all help make it even better. You never know what the designers may or may not have thought of or decided upon. Don't make the mistake of not giving your ideas & opinions because you think, " oh, they must have thought of that."

Definitely. 
Firstly, yes, although many things you might suggest will already be part of our to-do list, don't assume it to be so.  Also, voicing it often does influence how much priority we give a feature.

Quote
2. Custom Settings- ...

Give us the option of ...Going through all the options and click " save custom setting #1.
Give us the option of setting up and saving multiple "custom setting lessons".

  This way we could set up different approaches/custom settings for different days to keep things interesting for our child.
Ex. Option 1 is the all set ready to go basic and recommended?? settings you have now.
Option 2 is totally random every time
option 3 is a mix of a word from many different categories?? etc.

We intend to give you different Settings Profiles.  Eg., one that you would use for flash lessons, another you would use for multisensory, or when for stories, etc. etc.

In addition to having a 'Master' Override function like we do now (which will also be able to use the Profiles), we also will be allowing you to apply the settings profiles onto Categories/Playlists/Lessons on a long term basis so you won't even have to rely on Override.

Quote
3. Pronunciation speed- i haven't gotten to the phonics part yet and i really like the option of changing colors for each syllable. What about option to have the recorded pronunciation be slightly broken up for each syllable? maybe repeated at a few different speeds. ask a speech & language Therapist/pathologist..... wait a min, that's my mom.......

Yep, we have something in mind along those lines, but it requires a lot of audio recording, not to mention programming.  Maybe in v3...

Quote
Many people "sluur" because they don't move mouth enough or open it wide enough. Watch announcers as examples of good speakers.
People learn in many different ways for everything and in different ratios. The more " multimedia" we can make it, increases the chances of better learning.

Mom says, " it's vitally important to encourage understandable speech, and this program can do it all.
... 
Karen Young suggests that you film a real person, Film close up on the face, mainly the mouth. Show it 3 times.

Good suggestion. But again, will require a lot of media work. That's one video a slide. How many slides do you think we have in the curriculum? smile

This is something you would want to turn towards DVDs for.  The down side to that is that the number of words taught is much more limited due to production cost.

Quote
Next option......in order to really hear the breaks for each syllable, add a sound in the background of a metronome. Tap, tap, tap.
ie. el/e/phant . do the same as above. regular speed and slow motion. tap/tap/tap.
Do this for both the printed word and the face option.

Well, we're hoping that the color-coding and clear pronunciations will suffice for now.

Quote
Maybe a category of 2 syllable words, 3 and 4???

We have that later in the curriculum. smile  (only up to 3 syllables though).

Quote
4. Can u please give option of making the screen size full screen for the tips & videos pop up screen. it's very hard to read or see what you're highlighting in the videos. Maybe u have this but I just don't know how smile

If you are referring to the Start Guide, then you can maximize it (or at least in LR v2 which you'll see next week). If you're talking abotu the video tutorials, they are just embedded YouTube videos. There is a button on the bottom right you can use to make it full screen.

Quote
5. Library Home- present the cost of points right with the title & first description. It would save lots of clicks & therefore time. Lots of people have slow internet connections still.

Noted.

Quote
I really like having the preview of the icons. Did i notice that some don't have a preview? if so, it would b nice if it was mandatory.

That's cos those were created during the earliest beta version of LM when the feature wasn't built in yet.

Quote
Thank you KL for considering our requests, however long they, possibly, may take to come to fruition in version 6.

LOL

Just to piggyback on Extreme Bartending Dad, I have long fantasized about completely overhauling the Custom Settings dialog because it is so overwhelming and confusing. Of course, the settings aren't going to be simple if you want so much freedom and flexibility, but there has got to be a way to simplify the UI and the whole process for customizing. I've got the settings the way I like them now, and don't visit that dialog much, but it's just not optimized at all right now. That is a huge request of mine. If I had more time I'd offer up designs myself.

It's always a difficult balance between ease of access and 'ease on eyes'.  Extreme Bartending Dad wants all settings on one page, for example, but some (probably you) would prefer them more compartmentalized and probably in different tabs.
If you have ideas, you could even draw it out and scan it/snap a pic of it and send it to us.

Hopefully, when we have the Settings Profiles, it won't be such a big issue anymore anyway.

Quote
Something that Starfall.com games have is sounding out of basic words to help with reading. Like "mmm-aaa-ttt" "mat". My boy can pronounce many many words if I sound out each letter, but visual identification is still hard for him. Needless to say I'm pretty certain he's an auditory learner! Would be nice if some of the LR curriculum did this.

This is actually an extension of our split mode feature, where you create lessons that split up the consonants and vowels.  We do intend to create such lessons in the future, plus more dedicated LR features for this (as I mentioned above).

Quote
I wish we could buy or download numbers 1 through 100 in several language and just load them into LM. I'd download several languages if they were available!

Noted.  After we create them we will send you the bill. smile

And also the picture background, can we choose the colour instead of it defaulting to black?

Yes you can - it's in the Playback Settings.  (At least in v2 anyway, so if you dno't see it in your current 1.6, then you'll see it soon!)

But I'm still having a problem. I downloaded this 'ABC Song', that plays the words of the song, with the music, and then the video with the music. How can I have only the video playing? Because I don't want the same line of the song repeated twice for my kid. There is not 'Media only' option.

I'm afraid we dont' have any options to only play the video slides, and don't plan on having such an option anytime soon...

in the daily courses, since you can't put "random" for the multi-sensory without having the category titles random as well (and then out of place; like common animals, then showing the word "blue") could you at least program the categories themselves to be random each day or week even, so that every day doesn't start with "common animals" then "colors, then "kid's things?"

We are planning a major overhaul of the entire Courses system.  For one, you'll be able to create your own courses, and every day's lesson will be dynamically generated, which you can change at a moment's notice.
When we have that feature, you will be able to do all that plus a lot more.

In v2, we have a new feature which basically allows you to 'pin' a title slide so that it always stays on top and plays first.  Unfortunately, this doesn't help the course lessons because often one lesson has multiple Categories of words with multiple titles in it...

Quote
also, perhaps you could have a couple more different voices randomly reading the words, rather than always the same woman saying "YELLOW!" or "RAT" in the exact same way every time. if the font changes, and color and the picture, why not the voice?

I think you are referring to pattern phonics lessons because in word flash and multisensory, the voices ARE random.  For PP lessons, it was a deliberate decision to do that.  We felt that having a different voice each word would detract from the ability to hear the word differences and see the pattern clearly.

Keep your suggestions coming!

smile

« Last Edit: October 22, 2010, 09:45:25 AM by KL » Logged

sidonia
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« Reply #16 on: October 22, 2010, 11:21:57 AM »



Hello!
I would find it very useful for me if I could translate the whole LR curriculum with ease  in an other language (German, Italian, Hungarian)
Before the  buying LR (v.2) for  my daughter I would like to know if this is possible or not.
Thank you

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KL
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« Reply #17 on: October 22, 2010, 11:37:08 AM »

I would find it very useful for me if I could translate the whole LR curriculum with ease  in an other language (German, Italian, Hungarian)
Before the  buying LR (v.2) for  my daughter I would like to know if this is possible or not.
Thank you

Yes and no.

What you can translate are all the Categories that make up the curriculum.  And in v2, there is now a SAVE AS function that makes it easy to save a word file as a different (translated) version.

Because right now there is no ability to create your own curriculum under the Courses tab, you cannot really 'translate' the curriculum. But you can get very close to doing so by using the Playlists function.

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sidonia
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« Reply #18 on: October 22, 2010, 02:04:57 PM »


Hello !
I had some questions your answer on :
If i  can translate only the categories I have so much of the program as I would in the English language? Can I use it to get the child to read in German ?( the elements which are needed to learn to read are also applicable in the German language?)
Specifically,  what content  can i translate and what content can i not ?
Thank you for answering the questions.


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« Reply #19 on: October 22, 2010, 08:55:06 PM »

Mom2ross says,
Quote
"Something that Starfall.com games have is sounding out of basic words to help with reading. Like "mmm-aaa-ttt" "mat". My boy can pronounce many many words if I sound out each letter, but visual identification is still hard for him. Needless to say I'm pretty certain he's an auditory learner! Would be nice if some of the LR curriculum did this.

I wish we could buy or download numbers 1 through 100 in several language and just load them into LM. I'd download several languages if they were available!

Great suggestions Mom2ross, I totally agree with both. Also, it's good to see that i'm not alone IMO that the custom settings are confusing.

Someone wise once said," Decisions are made by those who show up!" This thread is the place to show up and post your own ideas or show your support of the ones that you agree with. If someone posts a few ideas and no one else posts agreements, Brillkids may think it's just one person.

The more people who take the time to get involved in this thread, the better the chances that our voices will be heard.
 Hmmm, i'm feeling motivated. I think i'm going to write a post about this thread to increase the chances that more people will get involved.

Check it out when I'm done and pass it on. Thanks everyone for helping me help my son have a better life.
Sincerely, Wyatt's dad Scott

here's the post i made if you're interested-
http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/help-make-little-reader-and-this-community-even-better/

« Last Edit: October 22, 2010, 11:01:11 PM by ExtremeBartendingDad » Logged

KL
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« Reply #20 on: October 24, 2010, 01:54:44 PM »

If i  can translate only the categories I have so much of the program as I would in the English language? Can I use it to get the child to read in German ?( the elements which are needed to learn to read are also applicable in the German language?)
Specifically,  what content  can i translate and what content can i not ?
Thank you for answering the questions.

You can probably translate almost all of the regular Categories but not the Pattern Phonics ones, because that's not a question of translation, but a question of showing words which have a similar pattern.  But yes, teaching a baby to read using the flash/multisensory methods is the same no matter what the language.

Scott - thanks for your post. smile

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« Reply #21 on: October 24, 2010, 08:18:52 PM »

Thanks for the reply..I would like to know if I buy the LM, I can translate it to German?
How should I translate the LR and LM without computer knowledge?
Is there a detailed manual that I can follow from beginning ,step by step ?
Thank you.



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« Reply #22 on: October 24, 2010, 11:37:30 PM »

Hi KL,
You're very welcome for the comments. "Just callin em like I see em smile My suggestions/wish list is always long term brainstorm thinking.

Questions:
1. In LR Version 2, coming out soon, going to have the ability to automatically keep/use the custom additions we've put into Version 1?
I'm assuming yes, but as i'm new to the program and i'm going to add our family's pictures & toys and go on a photo scavenger hunt to add additional pics to as many words as i can....
Should I wait until V2 to add all my customizing?


2. is there a limit of how many..
  - pictures per word
  - pronunciations per word
  - videos per word
  - sound effects per word....meow, bark, ruff etc.?


I can't remember if i or someone else asked for this or not....
3. Can you create "Expansion Packs"? For semester 1 and 2
 ( the words that everyone has so it would be the most valuable place to start i think??)

Can we have the ability to send in to you a few of these that we've created or lots, and you create a few more full lists for each category?

Also full packages of course. I guess i see a possible good future for everyone if you continue upon the path you've already done a very good job at.
Give us a really great full package program that's all we need if we don't want to do anything but press play and go... ( you've done that ) But, create options for us to put some time into preparing and fully customize it.

I suppose this and a few other of my wish list is...

 to be able to automatically download a large amount of information.....
1 picture,
or pronunciation,
or video,
or sound effect for each of the words you've chosen in semester 1,
and have it automatically fit into the program.

Not as separate categories, but adding it right into the standard curriculum but you create an all at once option instead of us going through the process one at a time. You start out giving us 1 meow, and one bark?
now we have the option to upgrade to 2, 3, or 4 different meows to keep it interesting.

 If you open up a contest for them , who knows how many you'll have to choose from.
Maybe they'll be funny parents doing imitations? anything to make the experience fun for them is good for all of us. Funny pictures of dogs, cats, really great laughs, silly faces for smile etc..

Maybe hold a contest to nominate the categories, already created, or words that should go into semester 3 & 4.
What age would children, if starting early, be ready for these?

 Free is always good and as i'm starting to use and understand the system i really can download a lot of great content, but i wouldn't mind paying a few extra bucks for some optional expansion packs. Suggestive selling or Up-Selling can absolutely make or break a companies success. "Would you like fries with that?". That's probably the #1 money making question ever said and that's the reason that it's mandatory that it's said to every customer smile

As i said above, i'm going to add a lot of personal family and i'm sure a pretty good percentage of LR users do also
( i'd be curious to know how many do actually), but the easier and more full package a curriculum is, with expansion packs available, I definitely think more people will buy your program.

I would think that one of the challenges you have when trying to promote & sell LR & LM is that it can "seem too complicated" to an avg. or below avg. computer user.
Certainly more than a dvd. That's a perception that is not the reality but perception sometimes counts for more unfortunately.

Once one tries it, free trial for 14 days is very effective i would think- good job, you realize it's actually very simple
 if you want to just follow the semesters.

I would think that the people who are not very computer literate or are apprehensive of doing anything custom, they especially would like this option. LAck of time for the busy parent as well would be a main motivator to get an expansion pack.

4. What about semester 3 & 4 and beyond? I know there's lots of categories that are available now in the library, very nice... and certainly will be using them.
I'm wondering if there have been studies anywhere that list the top 100 most common words used?
500, 1000 etc. What are the most important and useful words to our children to learn first?

I'm sure you went through some sort of similar process when you first created LR. I'd have loved to be around for that process smile
Maybe you create a highlight reel so to speak of all the down-loadable content already created?? again, this could be some sort of expansion pack offer. One download and press play.


Quote
Quote
Many people "sluur" because they don't move mouth enough or open it wide enough. Watch announcers as examples of good speakers.
People learn in many different ways for everything and in different ratios. The more " multimedia" we can make it, increases the chances of better learning.

Mom says, " it's vitally important to encourage understandable speech, and this program can do it all.
...
Karen Young suggests that you film a real person, Film close up on the face, mainly the mouth. Show it 3 times.

Good suggestion. But again, will require a lot of media work. That's one video a slide. How many slides do you think we have in the curriculum? smile

This is something you would want to turn towards DVDs for.  The down side to that is that the number of words taught is much more limited due to production cost.

Thanks, i'm not sure how many slides but it's a lot and i certainly understand about production costs. If you'll forgive a little bit of , hopefully not preachy, i've walked a little bit in your shoes.... our company has written, produced and paid for 25 different Extreme Bartending, Hospitality and Bar Tricks, Riddles & Challenge training videos.
 
I was thinking long term..V 3 or creating the next version of the system that can handle adding it as an expansion pack that fit's right into your standard semester 1 & 2.

 I really have no idea of the overall file size limitations you have. None, but when i'm creating a new product, i always think first of my perfect world first.
- is it going to add value to my product? will it really increase the quality and thus good reputation of our programs?

Walt Disney and his brother Roy Disney, who was the money man, have a truly amazing story. I've read his biography 2 or 3 times. One major lesson i learned from him, and from what i've seen from your company you've already learned it, is to always put money earned back into making higher and higher quality products. Walt & Roy did it in the early days to the point of them being very poor, but they kept making better & better cartoons, built a reputation for high quality and.......


How much will it cost me to produce? how many people have a version that will support this expansion pack or that one etc..? how many do i have to sell to break even?
 But more importantly over the long run, will having it increase the sell-ability factor?
Will it win over some who may be on the fence?

Identify the issues that the skeptics have with your programs and/or identify additions that will truly make it a "Complete" learning language program..... " I can't do everything, but have I done everything that I CAN do?". Will it help add to, continue to, making your programs the best in the world?

Consider adding it to your, i'm sure, long, long list of your own wish list over the next 5 years. Once you've created and paid for the production...... it's yours forever.... forever is a very long time

Thank you for your time smile

Oh, P.S. KL Says
Quote
Definitely.
Firstly, yes, although many things you might suggest will already be part of our to-do list, don't assume it to be so.  Also, voicing it often does influence how much priority we give a feature.
I just noticed somewhere that we are able to post Polls? Would it be helpful to you KL & Lappy, for anyone who makes a suggestion to add a poll next to it? That would get a lot more people participating if they only had to check a box rather than write a whole post, even if its only a small one.
Does this forum have the ability to do that? Add one or multiple polls in a post rather than creating a Poll separately?

Ok that's all for now smile


« Last Edit: October 24, 2010, 11:52:18 PM by ExtremeBartendingDad » Logged

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« Reply #23 on: October 26, 2010, 03:10:22 AM »

It would be nice to see the "Flesch Cards" words created by DadDude (Based on Why Johnny Can't read) incorporated into LR, along with the 220 Dolch Sight Words. The sight words are tricky because many of them don't have pictures that go along (it, one, and so forth). However, they could be added on in sets of 10 at the end of the days LR lesson after pattern phonics, with each word flashing in a different font/color/bolded/etc to add some visual interest.

The "Flesch" words and the "Dolch Sight words" are two excellent resources that our children can draw on and I would love to see them factored in to LR down the road. Although, I do see that a few of the Dolch words are included currently, I would love to see the full list incorporated.


Also, I know that others feel the same way about the opinion comments on the LR files such as "Girls like to wear pink" (which promotes gender stereotyping) or "Rats are like mice but much nastier."  It would be better to base the comments factual statements similar to EK, not someone's opinion. Also, I cringe every time I hear "Don't draw on a wall" and I want to yell at the TV "Please don't give my kid any ideas!".....ironically enough DD took a pencil to the wall for the first time tonight, thankfully most of it came off.

Lastly, I hate having to click "autofoward" every time we do a multisensory lesson in LR. I wish there was a way to save that setting 100% of the time. I think that is already being addressed in the next version though.



« Last Edit: October 26, 2010, 03:12:55 AM by LilyAndOwensMom » Logged

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« Reply #24 on: October 26, 2010, 10:17:34 PM »

I gave this some more thought, it would be nice if the computer curriculum had a screen with a master list of words that are included in it. Then, there would be a box next to each word that could be checked when "mastered." Once a word has been checked "mastered" it would be removed from all future LR lessons and automatically substituted in the lessons with words that have not been mastered yet. It would allow each child to work through the program quicker at their own pace if needed.

We're kind of dealing with this now with my DD, she has mastered the majority of the words in the LR curriculum at it's current pace. But DS has not, so I will play it all regardless and she can just deal with the review while he is still learning the material.

« Last Edit: October 26, 2010, 10:20:14 PM by LilyAndOwensMom » Logged

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« Reply #25 on: October 27, 2010, 03:14:38 AM »

...
Also, I know that others feel the same way about the opinion comments on the LR files such as "Girls like to wear pink" (which promotes gender stereotyping) or "Rats are like mice but much nastier."  It would be better to base the comments factual statements similar to EK, not someone's opinion. Also, I cringe every time I hear "Don't draw on a wall" and I want to yell at the TV "Please don't give my kid any ideas!".....ironically enough DD took a pencil to the wall for the first time tonight, thankfully most of it came off.

Lastly, I hate having to click "autofoward" every time we do a multisensory lesson in LR. I wish there was a way to save that setting 100% of the time. I think that is already being addressed in the next version though.
...

Hi LilyAndOwensMom,

Just to let you know, we are updating the Picture Audio recordings for the whole curriculum to take into account most of everyone's comments.  smile
In the meantime, you can simply turn this feature OFF -- this way the word pronunciations will play instead of the picture audio. To do this, simply select the Course / Category, toggle the Playback Settings tab, and un-check the "Pic. Audio On" item.

If you want to apply this setting (and the Auto Forward feature too) to everything, what you need is the Override function. Simply click on this button to turn it ON (you will find it on the Play Panel in your Playback screen), and then click on the cog wheel button beside it. An Override Settings window will pop up, and this is where you set all the playback settings you want to apply "globally."

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« Reply #26 on: October 27, 2010, 07:42:29 AM »

Should I wait until V2 to add all my customizing?

No need. Your database will be upgraded to v2 when you install it.

Quote
2. is there a limit of how many..
  - pictures per word
  - pronunciations per word
  - videos per word
  - sound effects per word....meow, bark, ruff etc.?

No, i think technically-speaking it's unlimited.

Quote
3. Can you create "Expansion Packs"? For semester 1 and 2
 ( the words that everyone has so it would be the most valuable place to start i think??)

We definitely have a lot more content that did not manage to make it into the 1 year curriculum that we will be producing and releasing in time.  For example, you'll be able to get a whole set of Animals Categories, and Pattern Phonics Categories, not to mention Stories, etc. 

Quote
Can we have the ability to send in to you a few of these that we've created or lots, and you create a few more full lists for each category?

If you're creating your own content, then I would encourage you to share them by uploading it to the download section.

Quote
Also full packages of course. I guess i see a possible good future for everyone if you continue upon the path you've already done a very good job at.
Give us a really great full package program that's all we need if we don't want to do anything but press play and go... ( you've done that ) But, create options for us to put some time into preparing and fully customize it.

Not sure if there'll ever be a 'full package' but you'll be able to add on all our new content to it.  With the Course Creator function that will come next year (v3 maybe), you should be able to seamlessly integrate all new content into the curriculum.

Quote
to be able to automatically download a large amount of information.....
1 picture,
or pronunciation,
or video,
or sound effect for each of the words you've chosen in semester 1,
and have it automatically fit into the program.

Not as separate categories, but adding it right into the standard curriculum but you create an all at once option instead of us going through the process one at a time. You start out giving us 1 meow, and one bark?
now we have the option to upgrade to 2, 3, or 4 different meows to keep it interesting.

So, like an intelligent sorter where you just add a big bunch of media files (pics, vids, sounds) relevant to 'dog' and it will all go into the correct place.  Good idea. Can be done, I think.  BTW, in v2, there is now drag and drop, so you can drag/drop multiple pics at the same time already.

Quote
If you open up a contest for them , who knows how many you'll have to choose from.
Maybe they'll be funny parents doing imitations? anything to make the experience fun for them is good for all of us. Funny pictures of dogs, cats, really great laughs, silly faces for smile etc..

Maybe hold a contest to nominate the categories, already created, or words that should go into semester 3 & 4.
What age would children, if starting early, be ready for these?

Yep, we need to put our minds back into holding more contests again.  It's all a question of allocation of limited resources and prioritizing.  But thanks for the reminder.

Quote
4. What about semester 3 & 4 and beyond? I know there's lots of categories that are available now in the library, very nice... and certainly will be using them.
I'm wondering if there have been studies anywhere that list the top 100 most common words used?
500, 1000 etc. What are the most important and useful words to our children to learn first?

Like I said above there will be a lot more content to come, in sets, but probably not as a new Semester.  Again, we're hoping the Course Creator will take care of a lot of those needs.

Yes, there are common words - google Dolch sight words.

Quote
Thanks, i'm not sure how many slides but it's a lot and i certainly understand about production costs. If you'll forgive a little bit of , hopefully not preachy, i've walked a little bit in your shoes.... our company has written, produced and paid for 25 different Extreme Bartending, Hospitality and Bar Tricks, Riddles & Challenge training videos.
 
I was thinking long term..V 3 or creating the next version of the system that can handle adding it as an expansion pack that fit's right into your standard semester 1 & 2.
...
Consider adding it to your, i'm sure, long, long list of your own wish list over the next 5 years. Once you've created and paid for the production...... it's yours forever.... forever is a very long time

Yep, point noted, thanks for that!

Quote
I just noticed somewhere that we are able to post Polls? Would it be helpful to you KL & Lappy, for anyone who makes a suggestion to add a poll next to it? That would get a lot more people participating if they only had to check a box rather than write a whole post, even if its only a small one.
Does this forum have the ability to do that? Add one or multiple polls in a post rather than creating a Poll separately?

'Fraid not.  A poll can only be started as a new thread.

LilyAndOwensMom,

Thanks for your suggestions.  Kezia already addressed some of them.

Re Dolch words etc.., will definitely keep it in mind for our next Curriculum revamp.  But in the meantime, we're hoping you guys can bridge the gap temporarily at least by creating them yourselves and sharing it.

I gave this some more thought, it would be nice if the computer curriculum had a screen with a master list of words that are included in it. Then, there would be a box next to each word that could be checked when "mastered." Once a word has been checked "mastered" it would be removed from all future LR lessons and automatically substituted in the lessons with words that have not been mastered yet. It would allow each child to work through the program quicker at their own pace if needed.

We're kind of dealing with this now with my DD, she has mastered the majority of the words in the LR curriculum at it's current pace. But DS has not, so I will play it all regardless and she can just deal with the review while he is still learning the material.

Yep, this is a planned feature. It won't make it into v2 but certainly will be in v3, or even v2.x.

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« Reply #27 on: October 27, 2010, 08:24:12 PM »

First of all , I want to thank Kezia for clarifying the permanent auto forward feature in the multi-sensory section for all of us. That helps me.
Do we have the option of setting the time delay before it moves on? I'd like to experiment with how much time i need/want to be able to make it different than the flash speed so we can get to the other side of the brain.

I want to support LilyAndOwensMom for her idea of a master list to be checked off and a substitute word entered.
Good idea ( can we add a thumbs up smiley icon to the forum? smilesmile )

And i really want to support her suggestions here....
Quote
It would be nice to see the "Flesch Cards" words created by DadDude (Based on Why Johnny Can't read) incorporated into LR, along with the 220 Dolch Sight Words. The sight words are tricky because many of them don't have pictures that go along (it, one, and so forth). However, they could be added on in sets of 10 at the end of the days LR lesson after pattern phonics, with each word flashing in a different font/color/bolded/etc to add some visual interest.

The "Flesch" words and the "Dolch Sight words" are two excellent resources that our children can draw on and I would love to see them factored in to LR down the road. Although, I do see that a few of the Dolch words are included currently, I would love to see the full list incorporated.

Ok, on to my other thoughts....
 Hi KL,
Thanks for the good answers. As many suggestions as i'm reading and making,, i'm still really impressed by version 1 of both LR & LM.

Clarification on one for now...
Quote
I say. Quote
to be able to automatically download a large amount of information..
...
1 picture,
or pronunciation,
or video,
or sound effect for each of the words you've chosen in semester 1,
and have it automatically fit into the program.

Not as separate categories, but adding it right into the standard curriculum but you create an all at once option instead of us going through the process one at a time. You start out giving us 1 meow, and one bark?
now we have the option to upgrade to 2, 3, or 4 different meows to keep it interesting.

KL says,
Quote
Quote
So, like an intelligent sorter where you just add a big bunch of media files (pics, vids, sounds) relevant to 'dog' and it will all go into the correct place.  Good idea. Can be done, I think.  BTW, in v2, there is now drag and drop, so you can drag/drop multiple pics at the same time already.

Intelligent sorter.....EXACTLY....of large amounts of media files, thank you.
 Perfect description for the foundation idea/goal for all of my suggestions on this topic for both programs.

What u say is really good . drag & drop always good.
that's part 1 of this...
1. you create a software structure that makes it easy for parent to create and add large amounts of files

    *** most important... a) Vertically ( the way my mind thinks of it and the way you present it  )- Example is the standard curriculum.
                         If we want to Add one more file for each word.. ie. we get pictures and..
One click..- Intelligent auto sort and we have another picture for each word in whole curriculum into the rotation for that word.
                          Repeat for each media file category.

     b) Horizontally ( the way my mind thinks of it and the way you present it  )- specialty categories at the end of the curriculum list. Family or mushroom types etc.

2. ***** I think the most important...
              You create a software structure that makes it easy for Brillkids to create large amounts of files
         ( or you cherry pick from already created files,
         ( or you specifically ask, the fantastic resource that is..., the forum community to create -
                                             Assertively promote contests for what you want  )

 *** most important ... a) Vertically ( the way my mind thinks of it and the way you present it  )- the standard curriculum.
                         one more file for each word.. ie. you get pictures and.. click..-auto sort and we have another picture for each word in whole curriculum.
                          Repeat for each media file category.

         Now you could offer A "Vertical " Expansion pack....One or many for each media file.
That would be FANTASTIC ! and as i mentioned, a good add on bonus or suggestive sell...

     b) Horizontally ( the way my mind thinks of it and the way you present it  )- specialty categories at the end of the curriculum list. Family or mushroom types etc.


Quote
I ask...
3. Can you create "Expansion Packs"? For semester 1 and 2
 ( the words that everyone has so it would be the most valuable place to start i think??)

Quote
KL says,
We definitely have a lot more content that did not manage to make it into the 1 year curriculum that we will be producing and releasing in time.
 For example, you'll be able to get a whole set of Animals Categories, and Pattern Phonics Categories, not to mention Stories, etc.  
Those are examples of my term " Horizontal " expansion pack. They sound great.


Once you've created the software system structure/ability/feature??? of integrating large amounts of files Vertically...
These become possible... I would classify them as:
: super valuable/useful/time saving/incentives to expand the depth/quality of the original/out of the box program.

Which helps dramatically, i would think, increase the use-ability for
the computer savvy & newbies & just too busy to play with all the cool features when the out of the box program is already so good. It increases the overall value of the programs etc. etc... ok i'm running on, sorry.

If these are possible at all, i'm sure they are complete rebuilds or even creating new software that doesn't yet exist. These are very exciting long term ideas to me but why not dream big and start the discussion with...
Wouldn't it be cool if ????

Other examples:
For LM... example of intelligent sorting would be ...
Let parent record audio of every member of the family counting from 1-100 in only one long recording " take".
 click record...1,2,.....100.... Stop record. You instruct users to make sure there is a definite pause between each number.

The system " intelligently sorts " each number , or as the computer perceives it... separate audio clips and places them in the appropriate slot because it's in the order that was recorded.
The first clip goes in the #1 or first slot.... we preview... click redo or click keep recording.

That would be incredibly useful and time saving. Think of all the clicks and time it would take doing it as it is now.

The same new feature could be used for LR for recording pronunciations of the curriculum.
 Parents could do the whole list or only 10 as they wish. Also any new category we create.

Taking what you said could be done or as an extension of the drag & drop u mentioned is in V2 already, we make sure we add the correct "tag" or "key" word in the file name...we just drag & drop any & all files we create into one spot and....intelligent sorter feature does it's thing.

 Ok, that's enough dreaming for today.
Thank you for your consideration..

PARENTS: Yes, that means you nice person smile- What do you think of any of these ideas? Post your support.



« Last Edit: October 27, 2010, 09:01:19 PM by ExtremeBartendingDad » Logged

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« Reply #28 on: October 29, 2010, 03:52:32 AM »


 *** most important ... a) Vertically ( the way my mind thinks of it and the way you present it  )- the standard curriculum.
                         one more file for each word.. ie. you get pictures and.. click..-auto sort and we have another picture for each word in whole curriculum.
                          Repeat for each media file category.

OK, I'm understanding you better now.  What you'd like is a framework for users to add resources to each topic or even each word, resources such as pictures, pronunciations, etc.
So for example, we have the word "dog" and people can add all their dog pictures and videos etc. to it.
Users can then easily incorporate part or all of these materials into their LR 'dog' word file to expand on it, 'vertically'.

This would require heavy integration between our Forum and the software.  Actually, we have a lot of work yet to be done to improve integration in general, so this is something we'll bear in mind when we finally are able to get around to dealing with it.

Quote
Let parent record audio of every member of the family counting from 1-100 in only one long recording " take".
 click record...1,2,.....100.... Stop record. You instruct users to make sure there is a definite pause between each number.

The system " intelligently sorts " each number , or as the computer perceives it... separate audio clips and places them in the appropriate slot because it's in the order that was recorded.
The first clip goes in the #1 or first slot.... we preview... click redo or click keep recording.

This is similar to another feature that we already have in mind, but had to push back.  This also involves work on the Easy Voice Recorder.  Would take quite some time.

Quote
Taking what you said could be done or as an extension of the drag & drop u mentioned is in V2 already, we make sure we add the correct "tag" or "key" word in the file name...we just drag & drop any & all files we create into one spot and....intelligent sorter feature does it's thing.

In the coming v2, there will be an area for you to add tags/description that will assist in the SEARCH feature which we will build in later.


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« Reply #29 on: October 29, 2010, 08:52:59 AM »

This may already be a feature but i haven't gotten to it yet???? But...

1. Ex. for Dog...Do we/can we have the option to add the word onto/on top of the pictures and the videos? If so, can we choose the size of font etc.? or have some auto feature that posts it somewhere that isn't covering/interfering with the picture but would allow child to see a connection to all 3 senses used, picture of dog , audio of dog, and word dog.

Probably in the multisensory section so theres time to connect them all.
I certainly understand and agree with beginning with only one at a time, or 2 actualy but another layer to try would be niv=ce. font would have to be big enough to roughly equal picture or less probably.

WHat do u think?

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