Planning your Course
Smart planning is a key to success. Before you start writing your online course, it’s better to plan a framework of your course’s description, its learning outcomes, training goals, organization and selection of course content, assessments, interactions, students expectations and so forth. Having this information in hand will keep things well organized and moving forward smoothly.
Select Course Topic
The first thing you need to do is decide your course topic you will create your online training on and research it well. Deciding the training topic beforehand will help you determine a particular section of a subject to cover in your course.
Pick a focused, well-defined topic for a training. You can always create additional trainings to expand your offerings. Many people find it easier to create and manage short trainings.
Analyze target Audience
After deciding the course topic, it’s time to analyze your course’s target audience.
- Who’s your audience?
- Are they learners, experienced professionals, skilled workers, or people trying to start a new career?
- What is your students’ knowledge level?
- Beginner, intermediate, advanced?
- What will be the most difficult concept?
- How can you make it easier to understand?
These questions may be daunting at first, but they provide a solid foundation on which to build an online training.
Determine the Learning Objectives
After deciding the course topic and your target audience, it’s time to determine the learning objectives of the course. Learning objectives are the major “take-away” knowledge of your course. A set of effective learning objectives helps you determine the different areas you will cover in your online training and satisfies the online learner’s need to know “what’s in for me.”
Great learning objectives allow you to add and organize course content, add relevant examples, and select the right learning experience to meet your learners’ needs.
Organizing Course Resources
Collect and Organize Assets
After the planning phase, it’s time to gather and organize the material you have in hand. Pull together and evaluate everything you have (PDF, presentations, audio, videos). Differentiate between “relevant” and “nice-to-know” information, and add or remove content accordingly. Brainstorm intuitive ways to present the training materials to meet your training goals.
How to Write Effective Courses
Once you are done with the planning and organizing phase, flesh out content for your new course. If you already have the course content written, you can start by writing a short course description, dividing your content into lessons and/or modules, and developing the learning objectives to go along with each section.
If you are converting an instructor led training into an online course, think about all the things you say when you conduct a training session and try to include them in your course. These will need to be covered with audio (we hire professional Voice-Over talent) and closed-captioning text to meet accessibility standards (ex. American Disability Act – Section 508, etc.).
Types of courses
Do note that online training can be interactive, PowerPoint based (courses with PowerPoint decks uploaded) or text-based (content-orientated courses with content presented in an online format, requiring students to read the training material and successfully complete quizzes and/or a final exam).
Provide Supplemental Information
Provide supplemental information and handouts in like PDFs so the learner can review it afterwards. Don’t let students miss out on your wisdom! As you write, don’t forget to stick to the point.
During the design phase, you need to decide which content would go in the course’s slides and the elements that can go well with the content. For example, images, audio, and video can help reinforce and potentially take the place of text.
Interactive elements such as activity and game templates generate interest. Assessments give students feedback on how they are doing and can help correct misconceptions. Also consider what content should be presented as support material or job aids.
Remember, your aim is to redesign and improve your existing content by leveraging technology, not merely transferring your content from one medium to the other. Take advantage of the different features that our course authoring tool has to offer, and combine it with excellent content to create a course that makes learners come back for more.
Explore the Templates
Take advantage of the built-in course templates in our Learning Management System (or LMS) to create engaging and memorable learning experiences for your students.
Creating Online Course
Now that you have authored a draft of your online course content, have carefully crafted learning objectives and assessments, identified key audio and visual support, and planned out some engaging activities to get learners deeply involved in the subject matter, it’s time to build what you’ve designed.
Before you begin, it’s always a good idea to take your authoring tool for a spin to get acquainted with its functionalities. Why not create a sample course first, preview it, and then move ahead with designing your first course?
Create Learning Evaluations and Assessments
Learning courses train learners in a particular topic and then assess and grade their knowledge after completion of the course. Evaluate your learner’s knowledge and reinforce learning by adding effective assessments in your courses.
Include short quizzes after each module and end your course with a comprehensive final exam. Assessments help learners retain more, and show both you and your learner the level of learning achieved at the end of the online training. Don’t forget to provide effective feedback to ensure maximum learning transfer.
Complete the Course Creation Process
Once you have everything thing in place, complete the course creation process by performing a quick Quality-Assurance (or QA) on your online training. Proofread training content for typos and grammatical mistakes, double check each hyperlink and support material, and view your course from a student perspective in order to ensure an error-free, professional looking course.
Good luck with your first course!