how to plan a online course

^{Step by step to plan your online course}

• Set a topic for the course. You probably already have a pretty solid idea of ​​what you want to teach, but before proceeding, you need to refine that idea.
• Decide who your course is for. With a topic set, it’s time to decide at what level your audience is, or rather, at what level it needs to be to ...
• Organize the content. Once you have defined your audience, you are ready to begin to plan your online course. The first thing you need to do is determine your differential.
• Choose content types. Your online course can be produced in more than one format. Classes can be on video, but you can also have handouts, documents, slideshows, and so on.
Decide what to use. To plan your online course and decide about the types of content you will be using, remember that you do not have to do everything.
Test the result. When you finish to plan your online course, before you begin to produce all the material, ask someone you trust to analyze and evaluate your outline.

Full Answer

How do I make a good online course?

We highly recommend including a Course Survey in your final module so that you can collect valuable data and insights from the student perspective on the design, content and delivery of your course. Give yourself permission to be a student too – to learn over time. This guide will help you create a very good online course to start with.

Do you need a course outline for your online training?

Let’s go through how to put together a course outline for your online training. That way you can overcome writer’s block and get your course created as quickly as possible. In addition, a course outline will help improve learning outcomes for your students.

How to design an online course?

How to Design an Online Course. 2. Start with an outline of the material. With online courses, it will be more difficult to control the flow of information as students can chose how ... 3. Determine learning objectives. Decide what you want students to get out of the course as a whole and out of ...

How to test your online course?

How to Test your Online Course 1 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... 2 In order to test your idea, create a landing page for your upcoming online course. See More....

How do you plan and create an online course?

In this article, you'll find an overview of the 10 major stages of online course creation:Pick the perfect course topic.Ensure your course idea has high market demand.Create Magnetic and Compelling Learning Outcomes.Select and Gather your Course Content.Structure Your Modules and Course Plan.More items...•

How do I create a course plan?

Determine course content.Select the main topics to be covered. To obtain an initial list of course topics, look in current textbooks or the current literature (for a special-topics course). ... Pare down and refine your initial list of topics. ... Determine the structure of the course; arrange the topics in a logical order.

How do I create a simple online course?

Here's how to create an online course for free in 10 steps:Choose 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.More items...•

How do you conduct an online course?

Tips for conducting an online class for the first timePrepare a suitable technology.Plan your online classes.Engage the passive students.Keep a consistent line of communication with your students.Feedback from students.

What comes first in planning a course?

Before the beginning of the semester, have a basic, solid outline for the course. Know the learning goals, major assignments, course policies, and the big picture goals of the course. Don't get bogged down in details.

What are the 5 parts of a lesson plan?

A good lesson plan should include the following 5 components; lesson topic, class objectives, procedure, time management, and student practice.

How much does it cost to create an online course?

It can cost anywhere from $200 to $10,000 to create an online course. The main source of expenses is the labor involved, followed by the equipment and software. If you are creating the online course yourself and not paying someone else to do it, this means that other than your time there are very few expenses involved.

How do I create a free online course?

How to create an online course for freeThinkific: Software to create an online course for free. ... Canva: Free and low-cost design tool. ... Beaver Builder: affordable WordPress page builder. ... Camtasia: Cheap software for editing online course videos, with a free trial. ... Vimeo: Free video hosting.More items...•

Which online teaching platform is best?

List of 15 Best Online Teaching Platforms for TeachingByju's.Vedantu.Unacademy.Udemy.Skillshare.Teachable.Cuemath.Lingoda.More items...•

How many modules should an online course have?

For a shorter course, you probably only want 3 to 5 main steps or modules that will comprise the bulk of your course. Every module contains several lessons that teach the actual course.

How can I make my online class more interesting?

Create a more engaging virtual classroomPresent your best (online) self.Use technology to your advantage.Find what inspires your students.Set goals and help students stick to them.Keep it interactive.Break down the lessons and make it digestible.Make your students feel valued.Be patient with your students.

Who can create online courses?

Anyone with knowledge in a particular area can create online courses. You don’t need a formal qualification or a degree to teach an online course....

How much money can you make selling online courses?

While some course creators make $50k+ month, most successful ones make between $1k-$10k per month. However, your actual course revenue depends on v...

How long does it take to create an online course?

As you might expect, there is no set-in-stone amount of time to create an online course. Generally speaking, it can take anywhere between 20 and 50...

What is the cost of creating an online course?

Generally speaking, it can cost you anywhere between $140 and $10,770 to create your own online course. But, of course, it could even be more, as m...

Can I create an online course for free?

Yes, it is possible to create an online course for free, but for that, you’ll need to do all the work yourself. Plus, you should use your smartphon...

How long should an online course be?

An online course should be as long or short as it needs to deliver value to your target audience and cover the information thoroughly. Overall, it...

What technical skills do I need to create an online course?

In most cases, you don’t need any technical skills. You’ll have to learn about a few things, such as video creation and setting up your course webs...

Where can I host my online course?

There are several options for hosting your online course, but the two best platforms are Thinkific and Kajabi. These platforms allow you to build y...

How much should you charge for your online course?

There is no definite answer to this, and you need to evaluate your competition, the value your course provides to students, and the niche you’re in...

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 is a paid plan?

Paid Plans act as a pay-wall, allowing users to access the content only after they pay and log into the members area within your site. One-on-one real-time lessons: In addition to the course, you may teach live lessons to students in a personalized 1:1 setting.

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.

What should students be able to do at the end of the course?

So what should your students be able to do at the end of the course? Build a boat, learn to ski, make software, get a better job and many other things. These will be the key drivers for the student to pay for your training.

Is eLearning a self paced course?

We have all taken an eLearning course and essentially this is a self paced course taken online that can be a blending of different content types. If you have not looked at the different types of content you can include in your course check out this article.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 ...

Is there an open source LMS?

If you have some software development skills, you may want to consider an open source LMS. These software are free to use and will allow you to manually change aspects of the code to tailor the LMS to your preference. The downside is that they usually don’t come with a customer support service.

How to make a course interactive?

Plan for interaction! Make sure your course is rich in opportunities for students to engage with the content, with you and with each other. This means creating diverse activities like discussions, group work, case studies and collaborative problem-solving. Also, be sure to select resources that are relevant and present a variety of viewpoints and meet different learning styles. Consider multimedia, periodicals, web resources, etc.

How many students have taken online courses?

According to a 10 year study conducted by the Online Learning Consortium, 6.7 million students have taken at least one online course and roughly thirty-two percent of all higher-education students now take at least one online course during their educational career. And these numbers continue to rise.

What is the purpose of learning objectives?

Creating Learning Objectives. It is essential to build measurable and clear objectives that outline what is expected of the learner. These objectives will make it easy to align the rest of your course and will serve to communicate learning expectations to students.

Is online learning an alternative to traditional learning?

Online education is not an “alternative” to traditional classroom learning.

Can you teach an online course the first time?

Relax! You won’t be creating the perfect online course, at least not the first time you teach it. It takes teaching an online course a few semesters to improve and enhance it. Continue to experiment with new approaches, refining your teaching according to your learning objectives and the feedback of your students.

How long does it take to create an eLearning course?

The idea behind rapid eLearning is where you use every tool and strategy you can to potentially create a course in 2 to 3 weeks instead of taking several months. So within your lessons, outline the exact content you will cover.

What is the purpose of an outline in a course?

Creating an outline that serves as a guide to the course is useful for both learners as well as for you so you can develop a more effective course .

How long should a microlearning lesson be?

Depending on how far down the path of microlearning you are going, lessons might only need to be a couple of minutes up to 10 to 15 minutes in length. There's not too much content in a 2-minute lesson so you really need to get at the heart of the topic and do so quickly if you're going that route.

What is the best tool to use to outline a project?

These are great, but with most, you will have to manually re-type your ideas into other software to use them later on. However, if you're a visual learner, mind mapping is probably the best tool for you. You can also use Trello or other productivity software to outline and manage your projects.

What is the lesson in Module 1 of Marketing?

Module 1: Marketing. Lesson 1: How to choose the right marketing strategy for your business. Topic 1: Why choose Facebook marketing. By using the modules, lessons, and topics for each new idea, you will create a system that is simple for your learner to follow.

Why do you need a script for a video lesson?

You don't want to lose your audience because you are rambling from topic to topic with no clear direction. Outlining will also help with lesson planning.

What is assessment plan?

Assessment plans fall in line with learning objectives. While your learning objectives identify what the student will learn, the assessment allows you and the student to have a clear picture of how well they have mastered the objectives. Your outline will identify the types and frequency of assessments.