For those who teach online, how do you go about it?

Hey, Rosie.

As for platforms, I really love using Podia: https://www.podia.com

It's pretty new, and the team is constantly rolling out new useful features and improvements. Not sure you can beat the value for the price.

Beyond that, I've used Skillshare and Udemy. I've earned more on Skillshare, though payouts are variable since they're calculated based on watch time due to the site's subscription model.

If interested, this is my course (built with/hosted through Podia): https://www.keynoteforvideo.com/free-animated-video-maker

I haven't created an online course before, but as you might know, I've been looking into this space for a while, and I'd love to keep up to date with your progress.

More to your question, I think you'd find this podcast episode from @wesbos very informative: https://syntax.fm/show/178/how-we-record-edit-and-host-our-courses.

Also, this episode is an interesting peek into their process for designing a curriculum: https://syntax.fm/show/065/hasty-treat-building-curriculum-for-courses

You should connect with @janelleallen too: https://www.zencourses.co

Hi Rosie,

I used to sell a course online at a $500 price point to cold traffic.

Tools:
Wordpress site with Learndash LMS plugin. Quicktime, Keynote (no video editing software, when I made a mistake I simply recorded the video again), YouTube to host the videos. Earpods for mic & sound.

I have also used GoToMeeting & WebinarJam for webinars at one point, before building out the whole thing in Wordpress with recorded videos.

Platforms:
I avoided marketplaces (Udemy) because I see them as a race to the bottom because you are competing with so many people. The constant discounting also makes it very hard to position yourself as premium.

Content:

• I always intended on taking a beginner to a pro. So I would include things even if I assumed most students would know them already.
• I would structure lessons: What is going to be covered > why it's important > an example > how to do it step by step > summary of what was just covered > mention tricks and potential pitfalls > reiterate importance
• I also looked at what the competition offered and made sure I offered that too

Best of luck

I teach a programming language online. I've made well over 100 video tutorials so far.

Tools I use for creating the content:

• OBS (for recording or even streaming screencasts/videos)
• Shotcut (for editing video)
• Audacity (for editing pure audio like podcasts)
• My own CMS for writing articles, embedding videos, etc

Platforms that have worked well for me:

• YouTube: I'm not a typical YouTuber and am not producing low-effort content that can easily go viral, but people who look for me or watch similar videos do find me
• Twitch: Twitch is great for engagement. I don't use it much though because it's hard to build an audience without regular streaming on a schedule.
• Twitter: I share every article or episode I create on Twitter. It's not a "get a huge audience quick" scheme, but it has been helpful for connecting with students and peers both.

Tips on actual planning of content:

• I just try to be helpful. I make what people are trying to learn or what I myself have found interesting.
• The way I choose what to make is I open it to voting from my free users, from my paying customers and from me! Each group has equal voting power to make content or even site feature requests.

Some great stuff in here already. I talk a bit about how I set up the S4F course in the latest IH podcast episode - hope there's some useful stuff in there for you.

And happy to answer any questions...

I've created an online course before and it completely tanked because I didn't have anyone to sell it to. To record it I just live-coded and commentated using QuickTime.

That's when I started codewithhugo.com, to grow my own audience that I could sell future info products to. Code with Hugo has actually become the main side project I work on, the cost of creating text/image content is a lot less than video.

Recently I got a deal to co-author a book "Professional JavaScript" with Packt (one of the big tech publishers). What that taught me about course creation is invaluable and I can already see my writing/teaching style change.

What my editors kept saying:

• learning outcomes: measurable, use Bloom's taxonomy to describe them, you should have maybe 3-5 for a day's worth of teaching
• examples/exercises: explain what you're doing before you do it. Explain, don't describe. Exercises should be broken down step by step, showing the relevant pieces of code and output. Concepts in exercises should have already been explained/illustrated beforehand, the exercise is a way to cement the learning.
• activities: activities are like exercises except you don't initially provide the code at each step, the step by step code walkthrough is part of the solution.
• discussion/reflexion: encourage students to discuss/reflect (depends if in a group setting) on pros, cons, challenges of the methods and tools described in the course
• outline: 1 section per topic, each section should have an introduction, examples, exercises. Have a global introduction and conclusion. Avoid per-topic conclusions, write a transition paragraph instead.

Hi Rosie. I hope you find this feedback useful.

I've been teaching offline for a while but I'm new to teaching/creating courses online. Here are a few things I can share:

i) Tools/Software: Generally, this depends on the type of content you wish to create: video, audio, pdf, or slides. For a beginner, you can start with slides, and then convert your slides to "video" using Camtasia for windows or ScreenFlow for apple.

ii) Platforms: a) Teaching: The popular platforms are Udemy, Alison, EDX, and many others. You can even teach on Fiverr.

b) Course creation: The popular platforms are Teachable, Thinkific, and Podia. I've created free and paid courses on Teachable but I've not tried the other two.

iii) Planning content: This is a specialized area. It all depends on what you want your students to learn. Generally, courses fall into four categories: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, and Masterclass. You use a "course map" to plan your content. Basically, it involves determining what the trainees should know graded as a) Must Know b) Should know c) Nice to know.

Find out what the students want to know (learn) through surveys and develop a course or courses that meet their need(s). Your expertise is required here.

Course to show you: My free course at Teachable is on "How to Write a Book In Six Simple Steps". Here is the link: https://the-paul-uduk-school-of-business-wealth-creati.teachable.com/p/how-to-write-a-book-in-six-simple-steps-free-course, and the paid one is "How Experts Build Empire Course For Newbies": here is the link: https://the-paul-uduk-school-of-business-wealth-creati.teachable.com/p/how-experts-build-empire-course-for-newbies.

I hope you'll find the above useful. If there is anything I can do to help further, please do not hesitate to ask. Best regards. Paul