The Define Experiences tab page of the Christian Learning dialog is where you define your own list of learning experiences and the topics that go with them. Defining learning experiences here assures consistency in your entries (and therefore your reports), and allows you to quickly and easily apply any or all of the topics to the names in your data file.

Learning Experiences List

The Learning Experiences List is the list box in the upper left corner of the page. There is a small navigator bar just above it that you can use to add or remove items from the list.

When adding a new learning experience, you have up to 40 characters to define it. When you click the small + in the navigator bar, space will open up in the list so that you can type in the new learning experience.

After typing in the new learning experience, click in the Response List memo box and enter the possible responses you wish to be made available for topics. Enter as many as you wish. We recommend that you limit your responses to no more than 20 characters each so that they will fit in the grids and reports.

Once you’ve entered the responses, click the small check mark on the navigation bar over the Learning Experiences list box.

Adding Topic Elements to a Learning Experience

To add topics and their related elements to any learning experience, first make sure the appropriate Learning Experience is selected. Then, click the small + in the navigator bar beside the Learning Experience Topics label to open up space in the grid. A new line will open up so that you can enter the information.

For the Topic, enter a descriptive line of no more than 40 characters. Press TAB to move to the Teacher field.

When entering the information in the Teacher field, you can either type in the name directly, or you can click the small icon which becomes visible when you enter the Teacher field and select the name from a Name Search dialog that will pop up.

Note that you do not have to enter a teacher if the name of the teacher is not available at the time you define the learning experience. That information can be easily added later on. Press TAB to move to the Date field.

If you know the date of the particular topic’s presentation, go ahead and enter it. You may either type it in directly, or select the date from the pop-up calendar by clicking the small calendar icon which becomes visible when you enter the field.

The Sequence field is designed to help you order the items in your list. Some topic lists will hold information about static events for which you know the dates ahead of time. For such events, you do not need to enter a sequence number because the date fields can order the list for you.

However, if you do not know the dates in advance but wish to see the topics printed in a specific order (which in some cases might make it easier to read and track a name’s progress), then enter numbers (no other characters allowed) in a sequence order starting from 0 or 1.

Finally, you may add notes about each topic as you wish. When a topic is highlighted, click in the Notes field and type in whatever you wish. You may type notes for a presentation, or just a few sentences to jog your memory about what the particular topic is about.

Continue clicking the + icon over the grid to add more topics as needed to fill out all the topics needed for a learning experience.

Erasing LE Data

If you wish to remove all instances of a particular learning experience from the learning files of your names, click the button which says: Erase All Data Associated with Selected LE. An "are you sure?" screen will appear just to make sure that’s what you really want to do. If it is, all references to the LE that is currently selected will be removed from all names in your data file. This process is not reversible, so make sure you really want to do it before you proceed!