If you're thinking about creating your own online course the software and equipment can often feel a little bit daunting so today i want to demystify the tech and share all of the tools that you'll need to create your own online course at any budget now let's start off with the most obvious tool you may know about there are tools called course creation platforms that allow students to pay for your course and then move through the entire experience online my favorite option is of course teachable since i worked there for four years and it's what i use at witten wire but teachable gives you the classroom and i want to differentiate that classroom from the curriculum imagine you're logging into teachable what you can do is drag and drop in your own article.
The Best Online Course Creation Tools: A Comprehensive Guide
Your own workbooks and create a cohesive linear curriculum for your students they get their own login they can pay you before they're able to access the course you can create sales pages and if you aren't interested in a more complete teachable demo you can leave me a comment below but for today i want you to have this main takeaway your course creation platform is like the classroom that your students go to to experience your course but you cannot create curriculum using that same tool for example you cannot open teachable hit a record button and then create a lesson but that's why i'm going to offer a couple of additional tools so that you can create your own slides and your own videos and let me say as well that teachable and all of its direct competitors are alike in this way so none of them actually allow you to create curriculum or workbooks they are all the experience half of the course experience and now we just need to fill in the gaps now that we've differentiated between the course platform and the curriculum itself .
1. Course curriculum slides
let's talk about the tools that you'll use to create great curriculum starting with your slides the backbone of many great online courses is the slide itself and then you can either record yourself using just those slides on the screen or you can include your face in the corner we'll get to that recording tool in a second when it comes to slide creation though i recommend using something you're comfortable with whether it's powerpoint keynote google slides my personal choice or you can use canva.
There are a ton of user-friendly options and you can purchase a starting template but i think you might be surprised to realize how simple you can keep the slides remember people are buying your course because they want a transformation they're looking for a certain outcome so they do not need big productions they don't need fancy studios they just need your knowledge and that's why 90 of my course curriculum are just slides or they are on screen demos sure my face is in the corner but this type of video that you see now is called a talking head video and i don't use very many of these in my courses because i'm used to a traditional classroom setting .
Where i have material in front of me so i would say that if you are thinking about your course but the thing holding you back is the fear of being on video just know that you don't have to be on video very much at all if you don't want to maybe just a short welcome video to show your face at the beginning but the rest can just be slides screen shares or if you're doing something with your hands or in person maybe you do need to do more of a demo with your slides created .
2. Recording and Editing
let's move into the next tool which is recording and editing video this is the one that i think stresses people out the most but my favorite tool to use is called loom and you can try it out for free at whit and wire dot com slash loom but what i love about loom is that you can record your screen you can include a little circle in the corner with your face if you'd like but you don't have to or you can record a talking head video but beyond that you can also do very simple edits like you can trim the start and the end of the video or you can even cut some small parts of the middle and the reason i mention these simple edits is because i don't believe that you need fancy video editing to create a great online course think about an experience you've had in a classroom with a really effective teacher you did not need them to edit their words in order for you to learn something from the experience .
I feel that's exactly what your online course should do it should convey information and it does not matter if it doesn't have like snazzy movie transitions so since we're talking about loom and using that to record and even do simple edits for your lessons that brings up the next question do i need any equipment cameras or microphones for my course i do use a 60 logitech camera for my course but i don't use that too often because as i shared before most of my videos are just screen shares and they may have some demos of me utilizing different tools so you can follow along .
3. Microphone
The tool that i do recommend for course creators is a microphone we know what good audio sounds like and adding just that one piece of equipment to your budget for your course will really elevate the overall experience i think that the microphone is well worth it even if you just buy something that's about 60 to 120 you don't need the fanciest mic out there but i'll include my favorites in the description below aside from the video lessons you may also want to create cheat sheets roadmaps or workbooks to go along with your course and i use google docs for a lot of my course material because that's what i use in real life like i don't use pdfs and then type in pdfs on my computer .
so what i've done is i've created google docs since those are digital friendly and i've just spaced them out in a way that people could print them out if they would prefer pen and paper so that's what i use for most of my course resources but i do sometimes create pdfs that are more of a one-page cheat sheet or a reference guide and i use canva to create those now since i've mentioned canva a couple of times for both the slides and the pdfs i think it's worth mentioning that there are some really incredible memberships out there where you can get not only stock photos but also canva templates for everything from social media to your course creation to your freebies and i'll link to some of my favorites in the description because templates are a great way to shortcut your creation time and have something created by a designer that you can just tweak the brand colors and fonts a little bit to make it feel like your own at this point imagine that you've created videos you have created maybe a pdf to go along with it or a workbook using google docs.
4. Uploading your curriculum
Now you would be ready to go into teachable and to upload all of that curriculum into a set order of lessons so the way teachable works is that it's organizing your course into milestones or sections and then individual lessons so you would go in add all this curriculum and you can also include text below or above any of the videos so you have a lot of flexibility in terms of what each lesson can look like as an example i will often include a video and then below it i'll include a little bit of text that has my recommended action item traditional courses can use teachable or a similar platform alone .
5. Course community platform
If you are interested in adding a community element to your course i use circle and you can try circle out for free at whitandwire.com circle what i love about having a community element is that i really feel as though my students are more successful when they have other people who are in their same shoes who understand what they're going through and they can share questions and feedback with each other so although having a community is not a required element for course creators i think for a lot of us it is a great choice and teachable and circle integrate with each other so students can have one unified login for both which is definitely nice to have let me know if you're interested in learning more about circle and if i get enough interest maybe i'll do a video on course communities in the future now that we've covered the course creation experience we also have to touch on getting paid because earning money for your hard-earned knowledge is very important to me and if you do use teachable it comes with checkout functionality so that you can get paid to enroll students into your courses now technically at this point we have covered every part of the online course itself .
6. Email service provider
Another noteworthy tool worth mentioning is your email service provider you may think of email marketing as something that comes before students are enrolled as a way to market to prospective students but truthfully after students enroll it's even more important to stay in touch with them whether it's welcoming them to the course and giving them their must-have info or checking in maybe after 30 days you want to get in touch or at other points you may want to share updates to the curriculum so having an email service provider where you can stay in touch with your students is crucial at witten wire i use activecampaign but another starter option at a lower price point depending on how large your list gets is flowdesk and again both of those are included in the description below this video lastly i have a few bonus favorites these aren't strictly course creation tools but i thought i would share three more tools that i love that course creators should consider the first helpful tool is a marketing tool and it would put different banners pop-ups or slide-ins on your website .
7. Email capture
So are pop-ups annoying yes at the same time having these engaging elements that catch people's eye on your website is crucial to collect email addresses and email is the primary sales channel for my course creation business and for many other course creators so the ability to collect people's email addresses is crucial and to do that my favorite tool is called convertbox there's a special link below this video if you're interested in checking out their lifetime offer but it is a must-have tool in my business and it works with both squarespace and wordpress i believe but definitely wordpress .
8. Survey tool
Moving on another tool that i love is a survey tool so there are a ton of different options my favorite happens to be paper form because it blends seamlessly into different pages or even inside of my teachable curriculum i often embed different forms when i'm looking for information from students .
9. Task Management tool
I am a big fan of utilizing forms to collect data from my students lastly perhaps my one true love of a tool i use asana to manage absolutely everything in my business and my courses are no exception so i use asana to project manage the creation of new programs but i also use asana to keep me on track to update my curriculum because i think it's a big myth that once you launch a course the first time it's just set forever i think the best online courses evolve over time to continue serving students and although it's not as snazzy as saying you can just set it once and forget about it i believe that keeping your students updated with the latest industry announcements or changes is a huge kindness that you can offer and so the course creators who are constantly thinking what could i change or improve about my curriculum are the ones that will have the happiest students and therefore i believe with good karma the best sales over time.
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Course Tips