A dummies guide to creating an online course

Why should I create an online course????

Why should you even build an online course at all? Well, you will realise thats it is not magic, but quite a lot of commitment.

Covid is changing the way we are all learning. That day is not far when online learning is the only way forward. While the previous generations have been used to the traditional way of learning with chalks, boards, lecture rooms etc…today, its all about learning online. And online courses allow you to pursue any specific topic you can imagine.

In fact, according to market research firm Global Industry Analysts, the online education industry will grow close to $325 billion in 2025. And that is HUGE…

As a potential teacher, as long as you have a decent knowledge in something you know people want to learn about, you can start teaching with some pretty basic tools.

The online course platform Teachable cites data that instructors who have made income using their site average more than $5,000 from their courses. So there’s potential to make money through online education.

PRO TIP : Do not start making an online course with an intent to make money. Start with the intent of giving back to society and money will follow.

Well, lets start then

Step 1: Define the Problem

Creating an online class is just like starting a startup. You must first find the right idea. But in order to do that you must first define the problem.

The key to creating a successful online course is identifying exactly what outcome your audience is looking for.

Identify the transformation

What you have to remember is that knowledge is power. People want to use that power to transform themselves by learning something new. The goal of your online course is to help guide them through that transformation process.

As long as you’ve identified the transformation, your students want to go through, you can practically create a course on anything.

If you’re looking for inspiration on what to teach, often the easiest thing to do is to simply ask your audience.

Pro tip : Create an email list using this strategy to check with your network as to what they would mostly be interested to learn about.

Create polls use using free poll tools available like google forms and share some topic options with your audience. Ask and seek on open forums like “quora”.

Fix up ONE niche area that you wish to kick start your teaching in. You got it right, just pick ONE.

Step 2: Smoke Test

Now that you have an idea and you know what it is you want to teach, the next step is to validate it.

Note, A great idea in your mind is not necessarily a product someone would want. You dont want to be spending hours creating a course but people ultimately wouldn’t want.

So how do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

One of the best ways to get validation for your course is to do a smoke test, meaning you start selling your course before it’s even completed.

You could possibly invest a bit on sites like Udemy, who have quite a huge student base. Be sure to check their pricing strategies prior signups. I am aware that Udemy takes close to 50% of your earnings and provisions a lot of student discounts. On the bright side, i would assume that they have the world’s largest student base.

Actively research where your potential students are hanging out online and make a public post asking if they’ll sign up. Do an email blast advertising your course. You’ll have to do more than just put out a social media blast linking back to your page and hope for the best.

What you should look at now is , how many clicked and tried to purchase your product. Remember, dont be too high handed at this stage since you are still a novice and just getting started. Aim for not more than 5–10% clicks at this stage, unless you have the blessings of some Wizard / guru in the field who is willing to promote your course and credentials.

At this stage, possibly no one would do that, unless the version has been tried and tested.

Step 3: Outline Your Course

Not everyone naturally makes a great teacher, it takes years of practise and patience. And the best teachers, as far as i can remember my school days, have always been those who got down to my level and understood what i wanted to learn or where i was finding something difficult to grasp. So you have to be aware of how you want to teach what you plan to now.

Remember this : People can hunt down information on their own; what they’re paying you for is your ability as a teacher or a mentor to guide them through their transformation process.

The easiest way to set up a great course plan is to start repurposing any pre-existing content you have. Trying to create completely new content from scratch can be a huge waste of time and the effort involved might not be worth the payoff, but if you have nothing ready, you got to start somewhere.

Next thing is to take a look at all the other information that is already out there. Check to see what’s being said about your topic, do some in-depth research. Remember that this is still a minimum viable product. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to work.

This course on Coursera could be a good option to see how it fits up.

Put all your information together and break it down into few sections with multiple smaller modules under each section.

Bring out small wins for a student when they complete a module / section, wherein the see a natural progression from a beginner to a higher level of proficiency.

The completion of a module means that your student has successfully learned a new skill or aspect of your topic. It’s important that you keep your expectations reasonable so you make sure they constantly feel like they’re succeeding.

Now break those modules down into detailed learning options inclusive of videos, slides & real world data. Each lesson could have a module of about around three to four minutes, with the longest being around nine minutes max. Retention power or concentration time span is very short, hence keep it short.

And remember : A real life example aligned to your section will have more impact as compared to a theoretical one. Try to always use live case studies from a student learning standpoint and always keep updating the same.

Each lesson could have a very simple outline of:

1. What am I going to teach you
2. What you need to learn (what’s in it for anyone attending your course)
3. What happens if you don’t (showcase results achieved by others / you)
4. How to do it
5. Action item

Step 4: Test Phase

When you’re making an online course, your beta test is your first, and perhaps your most important, batch of students.

They are your future case studies, your success stories, and the future ambassadors of your brand. Through them you’ll be working out what does and doesn’t work with your course and they’ll give you invaluable feedback on how to move forward.

Make this version as interactive as possible to gather feedback and find out what the biggest struggles are during the course. Dont end up sending worksheets and expect completion as well.

Remember, it’s all about the transformation.

In order to have a good course, you must be dedicated to helping your students through their own transformation process. What you don’t want to be doing is just giving out information that they could get anywhere else for free.

Record all your sessions: This really helps to validate how you would get better the next time.

Few options to record your sessions while teaching are Go To Webinar, Google Hangouts. Camtasia and Screenflow.

Build the community

By building a community around your course, what you’re doing is helping your students become self-sufficient and rely on the group more than they rely on you.

Create Channels on Watsapp , Telegram or even Facebook to continue the dialogues even after the course is over. Everyone could benefit, and also encourage others to share their advice as well.

A community means different and diverse opinions, and more creative solutions you may not have thought about. Plus it helps that your students are more likely to be engaged with what you’re teaching simply through having someone else to talk to about it.

Achieve results early

One thing that most instructors forget when creating an awesome online course is that online learning is almost entirely self-sufficient. It isn’t like school where you have a teacher or parent constantly telling you to do the work.

The key is to make sure that the student stays motivated throughout.

The best way to do this is to make they’re achieving actual results. It doesn’t even matter if they’re small as long as your student can definitely look back and see some tangible result from your lesson. You constantly have to find ways for your students to immediately apply their knowledge and feel involved.

If you have any advanced theory or concepts, save it for the end of the course. Resist the urge to do a massive information dump at the start itself.

Foster a community

People are inherently social creatures; we like being able to interact with different people. Online courses can quickly get very boring if your student doesn’t feel like they can interact with anyone else about the material. Hence, create and build communities of learning.

Well, this is just a small ideation from me while i am trying to build my own course and hence putting things in perspective for the benefit of the larger audience out there. Happy to share this ahead and hear your ideas about the process too.

Bonus: Tools to build your course

If you’re looking to create an online course for the first time, it’s frankly ridiculous to expect you to create it entirely from scratch. There are loads of different tools you can use to build your course, here are a few to try out.

Learndash

Learndash works great if you’re looking to host a simple course.

The great thing about Learndash is that you’re able to create a series of modules for your course. It even comes with some neat features too and is seriously a good option to try.

Good for those who need ample time to build and try out.

Teachable

For those with no experience in building an online course, you’ll definitely want to take a good look at Teachable. With more than 45,000 courses created, the platform is surely a game changer for novices.

With Teachable, you can create your own course from scratch with simple and easy-to-use tools.

You can even take Teachable’s own online course on how to create an awesome online course for free with Teachable!

Udemy

Udemy is a simple and fairly inexpensive. They provide you with templates, services and formats. Once you publish the course, it’ll be added into the Udemy database, making it easy for anyone to find.

Pro Tip — Udemy has the highest number of course subscribers, so this could be a good place to build a network

And finally there is also Skillshare, which is more hobby centric rather than skill centric.

Well i hope by now you have a fairer idea and a thought that is running through your mind to get started.

Do let me know how it goes for you and i will be happy to update my data points as well basis your experiences.

Happy learning, Happy sharing, Happy Caring.?

This article was published on medium.com. Link here :  https://link.medium.com/fVIjOJd4A5