how to construct an online training course

by Dr. Floyd Douglas 3 min read

How to Create Online Training Courses in 5 Incredibly Easy Steps
  1. Step 1: Define Your Online Training Goals and Learner Persona. ...
  2. Step 2: Create an Outline for Your Online Training. ...
  3. Step 3: Build the Content for the Online Training Courses. ...
  4. Step 4: Engage Your Learners. ...
  5. Step 5: Measure Meaningful Engagement Metrics.

Full Answer

How to create and sell profitable online courses?

Create a plan and outline for your online course content. Build your online course content. Settle on the price for your online course. Choose a launch model for your online course. Sell your online course through email marketing. Write sales pages that convert customers.

What are the best free online courses?

The absolute best free online courses for learning something new

  • If you want to do free courses on the big academic platforms. ...
  • edX. Everyone knows edX, the big name on virtual campus. ...
  • FutureLearn. If you’re looking to learn a thing or two from cultural heavyweights like the British Film Institute, step this way.
  • Coursera. ...
  • Khan Academy. ...
  • General Assembly. ...
  • Udemy. ...
  • Kadenze. ...
  • Honourable mention: Class Central. ...

How do I make an online course?

How to Create and Sell Profitable Online Courses: Step-by-Step Guide

  1. Think Positive and Avoid Mental Blocks. “I don’t have enough money to start online courses.” “I am not a subject matter expert.” “What if this doesn’t work?”
  2. Come up with a Profitable Course Subject. If you have an idea, a skill, a passion, an audience, or some content you want other people to see, then ...
  3. Choose the Type of Course you Want to Sell. ...

More items...

How to create an online course for free?

Throughout the course, you’ll create your own animations and games to test your new skills. A key benefit of working in Scratch is the community, which can be used for support, collaboration, and inspiration. You’ll become part of the Scratch community ...

How do I create an online training course for free?

How to Create an Online Course for FreeChoose Your Course Topic.Identify the Target Audience.Gather and Structure Your Knowledge.Create an Online Course Outline.Choose Your Online Course Software or Platform.Create the Course Content.Make Sure Your Content is Engaging.Create a Community for Your Online Course.More items...•

How do you create a training course?

How To Create an Effective Training Program: 8 Steps to SuccessStep 1: Perform a Training Needs Assessment. ... Step 2: Keep Adult Learning Principles in Mind. ... Step 3: Develop Learning Objectives. ... Step 4: Design Training Materials. ... Step 5: Develop Your Training Materials. ... Step 6: Implement the Training.More items...•

How is an online course structured?

In many ways, the structure of online courses closely resembles the structure of in-person courses. Each week, students generally must complete a set of required readings, watch one or more lectures, participate in a discussion with their classmates, and finish an assignment.

What are the 6 steps in developing a training program?

Six Steps to an Effective Training ProgramStep 1: Define Your Training. ... Step 2: Prepare Your Training. ... Step 3: Practice Your Training. ... Step 4: Deliver Your Training. ... Step 5: Confirm Your Training. ... Step 6: Audit Trainee Performance. ... The Path to Success.

What are the five steps in the training process?

Effective training begins well before a trainer delivers an individual training session and continues after that training session is complete. Training can be viewed as a process comprised of five related stages or activities: assessment, motivation, design, delivery, and evaluation.

What are the key factors for making an online course effective?

Five Factors for Successful Online LearningUse a systems approach to course design. ... Provide professional development. ... Set student expectations. ... Create community. ... Take advantage of the online environment.

How many lessons should an online course have?

The number of lessons you choose to include in your online course mostly depends on the learning objectives you promise to deliver. Most short courses comprise of a couple of 5-minute videos while longer ones have 20 to 50 videos which are each around 5 to 20 minutes long.

How do you write a training outline?

How to Write a Training Outline: Putting it All TogetherStep 1: The basics. ... Step 2: Define your training/learning objectives. ... Step 3: Purpose and Opening. ... Step 4: Clarify key topics, related concepts, and timing.Step 5: Presentation techniques and materials. ... Step 6: Evaluation, assessment, reflection.

How to create an online course

Creating an online course is easier than you think. Pick a ready-to-use course, edit it based on your needs, and share it. Or choose a template fro...

How to design an online course

ProProfs offers plenty of appealing course templates for you to choose from. Pick a course template that resonates with your brand. Pick a theme an...

How long does it take to create a course?

Depending on your training topic and whether you use a ready-made course or template, it takes just minutes to create a beautiful course. Keep the...

How to embed a course on a website

It’s easy to embed a course on any website with ProProfs. Just copy the embed code of your course, set your preferred resolution, and paste the cod...

What should the topic of an online course be?

The topic for your online course should be either a subject that you’re already knowledgeable about or are willing to invest in learning thoroughly. Either way, you need to be passionate about the subject.

Why is online education important?

Therefore, fostering a community of learners around your course will greatly improve their experience, contributing to the overall success of your course. An active online community can help users share their learning process with a group of peers.

What does competition mean in a course?

Having competition means that people find the topic relevant and helpful for them. It’s also a good idea to create content that can comfortably fit into an existing, tried-and-tested space. Once you have a clear target audience in mind, you are best equipped for later creating and marketing the course.

What to do after a video is filmed?

After you’ve filmed your content, invest some time editing your raw footage. There are many free video editing software available, from iMovie, to Lightworks, and the Wix Video Maker. Try to craft a nice rhythm to your video by breaking it up into digestible bites.

How to teach a lesson?

Go in a logical order and try to make your ideas evolve naturally from one to the other , to ensure a smooth and frictionless learning process. Remember that teaching is about guiding your audience through an idea, step by step. To make this clear in your course outline, define an objective for each of your lessons.

Do you need to run a test before starting an online course?

Creating an online course requires a lot of hard work and effort on your part, so running a test before you begin will allow you to validate this online business idea as one that will pay itself off down the line.

Can you rent a lesson on a video by video basis?

Individual lessons for rent or purchase: Allow users to rent or purchase your online course on a video-by-video basis. When purchasing a video, users will enjoy unlimited streaming of the lesson they’ve purchased, so that they can go back and rewatch the content at all times.

Business Know-How

Creating and selling training is one way to increase your income and promote your expertise. Here’s how to create your own online training courses and tips on how to deliver the courses.

3 Things to Consider When Developing Your Online Training Course

There are three primary components to the successful development of any online training. These are:

How to Create Your Course

Once you’ve identified what you want to teach, who your audience is, and where you want to teach your course, you should start developing the course. Pertaining to venue, there is one other option available to you. If your course is specialized, you might consider offering that course through your own website, learning platform, or through email.

How to Deliver Your Own Training Through Your Owned Resources

Long before YouTube and TED created the burgeoning online video training movement, savvy entrepreneurs created their own electronic courses they delivered through email. If you have a website, you can still do this today. However, online video training has become much more powerful and much more popular.

How long does it take to create a course?

Keep the 10-minute rule in mind, that is, any chapter (containing text, presentation, or video) should take only about 10 minutes for learners to complete.

Can you create a course without software?

Create online courses without any software installation. Courses are adaptable to different devices including laptops, smartphones, and desktops to facilitate ‘anytime’ and ‘anywhere’ accessibility. You can create a course in multiple languages. Configure over 100+ settings to develop secure courses online and provide private or public accessibility.

What is a storyboard in a course?

A storyboard is a rough, visual outline that helps map out how text, pictures, and other elements will look on a page, or in this case, your entire course. It will allow you and your team to see the overall learning pathway without the gritty details, and make changes needed before writing the specific content for each piece. Once you are done with the course design, submit for approval, and you are well on your way to creating the course.

What is the best way to ask for feedback from students?

Asking for feedback from your students is a great way to engage with your current audience, ensuring that they are getting the most out of online learning. After course completion, Take their feedback and use it to tweak the course and content accordingly.

Why is online learning important?

The benefits of setting up online courses include the ability to scale instruction to reach a wider audience than traditional live, classroom-based training, and at a lower cost too.

What is the next step in a course?

After compiling all the information that will go into your course, the next step is to map it out in what is known as a “storyboard.” This could be in the form of a document or presentation deck, or even a rough prototype or mock-up of what the final product could look like.

What is eLearning business?

eLearning is a powerful solution businesses to engage, increase and convert their audiences. Whether you’d like to create online courses, online quizzes or both, following a strategy for the design and development of your content helps to ensure high-quality results.

What to ask after taking a course?

After your learners take a course, ask them to give feedback on how they liked it. This experience will help you understand what is good about your course and if it needs to be improved.

What is a course script?

Similar to a play or a movie, your course script includes all audio narration as well as all on-screen text. The instructional designer must write this course copy based on the information provided by the SME (s), which could come from any number or type of source files.

What is learning objective?

A learning objective is a concise way of stating what the expected outcome is for the learner upon completion of the course; in short, it’s what they’ll be able to do after gaining skills or knowledge during the instruction.

What are the limitations of online learning?

One of the most significant limitations of online learning is that students can’t interact with you or each other as directly. If you don’t include an interactive aspect of the course, the education students are receiving will be little better than if they simply bought a textbook and read it on their own.

Why is online learning so popular?

Many prefer online courses because of the convenience while others note challenges for interactive and engaged learning. Before you start designing your course, it’s important to recognize the differences that will make lesson plans originally designed for an in-person class an ...

How to get students to get out of a course?

Determine learning objectives. Decide what you want students to get out of the course as a whole and out of each individual unit. These outcomes should be explicitly stated to the students and guide your development of the content. Start with objectives for individual units.

How to save yourself time in a class?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing or remixing material that other teachers have used for similar courses. You can save yourself a lot of time and maximize the quality of your content by reading other curriculums and adapting it to your class.

Why should each unit include some kind of interactive assignment?

Each unit should include some kind of interactive assignment so that students are consistently engaged. This type of assignment may be more difficult for math or science course. However, you can use message boards to encourage students to explain how they worked out certain problems or applied formulas.

1. Keep The Learning Modules Short

The attention span of learners is much shorter than most learning modules. Traditional education wrongly convinced us that students will pay attention for forty-five minutes or more. The truth is they were never paying attention, they just didn't have an "off" button.

2. Use, But Don't Overuse, Video

I've tried creating engaging content with audio over a presentation created in PowerPoint or Keynote. That works for a short time, but it isn't effective for an entire course. Another client had a very successful course, but he was intrigued by my claim that I could make it even more engaging. He accepted the challenge.

3. Keep It Simple

Professional videographers cringe when they hear me tell people to use their phones and a wired lapel microphone to record course videos. Professional videos do look better, but a simple video can get the job done. You can purchase a tripod mount, microphone, and extension for less than $50.

4. Create Interactive Elements

Most Learning Management Systems include various tools to facilitate interactivity. Simple quizzes are one option. By placing a single multiple choice question at the end of each lesson, you can evaluate student engagement. Of, course, you also can use some of the more advanced tools. The trick is to give learners something to do.

Step 1 – Clarify the Target Audience for Your Courses

If you haven’t done this already, or even if you have, take a step back and revisit exactly who you want to serve. Who are your ideal customers for your courses?

Step 2 – Decide on Your Theme and Goal

You'll see that the overall theme in our suggested curriculum related to both Customer Lifecycle Marketing and Keep Your Customers for Life is called Customer-Focused Marketing , so all the courses have some aspect of focusing on your customer in your marketing.

Step 3 – Identify Skill Gaps

Now that you know the theme and goal of your course curriculum, you need to pick the topics each course needs to cover.

Step 4 – Map Out the Timing

Your next step is to decide on the best way to spread out the delivery of the courses in your curriculum.

Step 5 – Decide How You'll Deliver Your Curriculum

There are a few ways to set up and deliver your curriculum, depending on what your ultimate business goals are and what your target audience prefers.

Need some ideas for what to put in your curriculum or continuity program?

Watch this video, where I went through 5 different ways to combine courses related to our Customer Lifecycle Marketing program (including the lead generation one I mentioned above):

Need more curriculum ideas?

We have a variety of programs packaged into suggested series in our Product Bundles category in our Shop:

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