As we conclude our first week post-Carmen update, we’ve received a number of questions about the Course Selector feature: what is it, how do you search courses. and how does “pinning” a course work?
So let’s take a closer look. The first thing to know is that the Course Selector allows you to navigate between courses from anywhere in Carmen.
To access it, navigate to the Minibar at the top of the screen and click the down arrow next to your course name (or click “Select a course” if you’re on the Carmen homepage).
In the drop-down menu, you will see a list of your courses. If you have more than 10 courses, you will also see a search box, a search filter, “pins” and a “Load More Courses” button. To make the courses more easily identifiable, we implemented a new course naming pattern. There will be 4 characters added to the beginning of each course name: 2 letters for term and 2 numbers for year.
The above image shows the Course Selector with each of its various components outlined. Depending on how many courses you have listed here, you may decide to organize and search your courses using one or more of these components.
1. The Search box: Type as much of your course title or course number as you can. Any courses that match what you typed in the search box will be shown in the search results. The more specific you are the better your search results will be, but you don’t have to be exact. For example, you might type “scholarships” for any course with “scholarships” in its name. This is particularly well suited for students or instructors with many courses listed.
2. The Search filter: You can filter your results by Course Name or Last Accessed. Last Accessed, especially for students or instructors with many courses, might make the search processes easier.
3. “Pin” a course: Pinning a course forces a course to remain visible at the top of your list once the page is refreshed. To pin a course, click the light gray pin button to the right of the course name. The pin will become yellow when activated. Likewise, to unpin a course, click the yellow pin button. The pin will revert back to its light gray color.
You might want to note that pinning courses only affects the Course Selector on the desktop version of Carmen. This change will not affect the My Courses widget or the course list on the smartphone version.
4. “Load More Courses” button: For students or instructors with a shorter Carmen course list, it might be easier to search courses using the Load More Courses button. The button will provide you with 10 additional courses at a time.
For more details, please see our Minibar video overview or visit the Carmen Course Selector help.
Some Great Adobe After Effects Tutorials!
Many of the programs we work with on a daily basis are capable of so much more than we realize. Adobe After Effects, for example, is an industry standard special effects program. It has so much potential to create truly amazing work, but with such an enormous number of tools, effects, and plug-ins, it’s hard to know where to begin.
After Effects can be a very daunting program with its capability to do anything from basic color correction to building an entirely original three dimensional world.
There are tutorials scattered all over the internet that can teach you any number of things about this program, but one amazing source for video effects editing is www.videocopilot.net.
The folks at Video Copilot have created hundreds of amazingly detailed tutorials and stream them on their website completely free for you to use whenever you’d like. These are some of the best I’ve come across. They are extremely easy to follow and never skip a step. Even if you are an After Effects beginner, you can create text animations, explosions, demon faces, and more just like one of the pros. If you’re looking to try your hand at creating some wild special effects Video Copilot is a great place to start.