How to Customize Learning Levels
No two riding schools are the same!
You’re going to want to modify parts of the Levels curriculum to make it work for your experience level, discipline, facility, horses, budget and target market – and that’s okay.
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Make it yours:
how to adapt Learning Levels resources to fit your unique teaching situation
Use our progressive system as your base and revise as required
- All of our resources come with a license to adapt them for your own use. You may add your logo or edit the text and images of any Learning Levels resource file — but you must keep our copyright statement on all materials. See the Copyrights and Caveats section for details.
- Before you start editing files, look over our Helpful Editing Tips section for information that will produce the best results with the least time and effort!
- The first thing to consider adapting should be the curriculum checklists. Go through the objectives for each Level and add, subtract, rearrange or edit them to suit your instruction program.
- If you've made changes to the curriculum, you'll then need to make those same changes in any Progress Sheets, Progress Booklets, or Horse of a Different Color Certificates that you plan to use.
- You can also change any other resource materials (lesson plans, worksheets, Level Up sets, etc.) to work with your local terminology, tack, equipment, or discipline-specific riding skills.
Helpful tips for editing the PDF file of any Learning Levels resource
know what to expect when Making changes to PDF documents
GENERAL EDITING GUIDELINES:
- Our resource documents are created using InDesign, and we're not able to share the huge source files. However, with a little editing skill you can copy, convert or directly edit our PDF files for use in your own instruction program.
- The easiest way to alter a page in a PDF document is to use an app specifically designed to create and edit PDF documents.
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You'll save a lot of time and effort — especially if you're going to do extensive editing — with a PDF editor like Adobe Acrobat Pro. There are also a bunch of PDF editors available that are less expensive and easier to use!
We've used PDF Sam (both free and paid versions) with excellent results, but an online search for PDF editors will find many other options. The advantage to using these applications is that you can quickly make text or image replacements without adversely affecting the page layout. - There are also free online converters that will convert single pages or entire PDF files to Word or Google Docs. Some work better than others, so search for "PDF converters" and try a few. However, look below for issues with document fonts and margins!
- For minor text changes, you could just copy-and-paste all of that document's text using Word, Google Docs, etc. Simply select everything on the page and paste it into the new document. Note that you may have some extensive layout editing to do unless your new document uses the same fonts and margins as the original document.
- Please do remember to keep our copyright statement on all materials. See the Copyrights and Caveats section for details.
HOW TO CORRECT FONT ISSUES:
- No matter which method you use to copy a page, if your new document doesn't use the same font as the original document, the spacing and page formatting will be altered. This can affect the layout of text and images in unexpected ways.
- Ideally, you'll want to use the same fonts as the original document, which may require installing a few fonts on your operating system. In particular, you will need to have Segoe UI, Segoe Media, Clearly Gothic Light, and Griffon Light. You can search online for each font.
- Alternatively, you might be able to find fonts on your system that will work if you adjust the sizing of headings and other elements. Start by converting everything to Segoe UI and tweak as necessary to make the layout as close to the original as possible.
HOW TO ADJUST PAPER SIZES AND MARGINS:
- Layout can also be affected if your new document has different margins than the original document.
- All of our documents are formatted for American Letter-sized paper, with a minimum 0.5" top margin and a 0.65" bottom margin. Left and right margins will vary according to the type of document, and may need to be adjusted after using an online PDF converter.
- European A4 paper will work with margin adjustments — especially if your printer has a "shrink to fit" option.
YOUR LICENSE TO use thE learning levels MATERIALS
simply respect our copyright ~ then go do good things with it!
Legal Use of All Published Materials. Our downloadable and online resources are for your personal use. Instructors, trainers, and other equine professionals may print, photocopy and edit the materials for use with their students or assistant instructors — but may not sell, publish or distribute any of our online content or printed information to anyone outside of their instructional program. All resource materials, information provided on our website, and all promotional materials we publish on social media, are copyrighted and may not be reproduced by non-LLPro members without written permission from HorseSense Learning Levels.
HorseSense Learning Levels materials are intended for general informational purposes only; they do not constitute legal advice and are presented without any representation or warranty whatsoever, including as to the accuracy or completeness of the information. HorseSense Learning Levels, LLC is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of such information.
Limitation of Liability and Indemnity. You agree and acknowledge that you are fully responsible for your own acts, and that if you, or other individuals are injured in conjunction with any information or services provided by HorseSense Learning Levels, it was your choice alone to rely on that information or service and you do so at your own risk. Use of any HorseSense information or materials, whether for personal or professional means, constitutes your agreement to indemnify HorseSense Learning Levels from all liability.
Your use of our resource materials and this website constitutes agreement with these terms and with all Terms of Use and Privacy Policies — please review details on our LEGAL STUFF page.
Don’t have time to modify things yourself?
Want us to customize Levels resources to your specifications?
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