Production planning 9 Pre-shoot stage 10 Sample videography brief 10 Shoot stage 12 Presenting 14 Post-shoot stage 14.

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2 3.1 Tech made easy: Video content Your options for video 5 Do it yourself 5 Go professional 7 Video Sample video from The Business Soul Sessions 7 Video Sample video from the Do What You Love e-course 7 Video Do What You Love promo video 7 Video PaperLove promo video 8 Video Top tips for making great video Featuring Craig McDougall of Broken Physics 8 A note about hair and make up 8 Video Make up demo with Helena Larsen of Sugarpaint Makeup 9 Production planning 9 Pre-shoot stage 10 Sample videography brief 10 Shoot stage 12 Presenting 14 Post-shoot stage 14 Video hosting Tech made easy: Audio content Listen up Tech made easy: Text content Scrollable text 17 Text as an audio or video transcript 18 Additional content PDF 18 Interactive worksheets Tech made easy: Image content Make it visual Tech made easy: Classroom Your e-course classroom 23 2

3 Set up option (1): Run your class on an existing e-course platform 23 Set up option (2): Build it yourself on a free blog 24 Set up option (3): Use Wordpress and work with professionals 25 Don t panic! 26 This is how we do it 26 Setting up a new classroom 26 Step 1: Design your classroom 27 Navigation 27 Pages + posts 29 Categories 30 Video Classroom tour 30 For static classes 31 Step 2: Work with a designer to bring your design to life 32 Step 3: Work with a developer to make your design live 32 Replicating classrooms 33 Classroom security 33 Getting inspiration Tech made easy: Community Community options 34 The pros and cons of using Facebook 34 Community options Tech made easy: Registration + payment Registration + payment options 37 How we do it Your tech jigsaw Basic steps for selling your course 39 Set up for your classroom 40 Worksheet Your tech roadmap The no-bread technology sandwich Avoiding the tech headaches Making it happen Making it happen 43 Appendix: Video transcripts Video Top tips for making great video - Featuring Craig McDougall of Broken Physics 45 3

4 Module 3 is all about technology. This is often the area that stops people creating an online course, because they think it is terrifying, but I promise you this Technology is your friend. If I was starting all over again, I would prioritise my budget to pay for professional design, website development, website hosting and videography, as nothing is worth the headache of a website or classroom that doesn t work. Unless you are a professional web developer I encourage you to first work through this course to establish what you need, and then go to a decent web developer and let them advise what website and classroom options make most sense for you. This will save you a ton of time, stress and effort, and in the long run will probably save you money. If you really do not have the budget to work with professionals, take a look at 3.9 The no-bread technology sandwich to explore ways of getting your e-course out there with an absolute minimum of technology spend and hassle. In the Resources section of the classroom you can find a whole host of links to useful software, plugins, community sites and more, along with info on trends in e- learning. Be aware that things are changing all the time, so keep an eye on tech blogs, and do your own research to compare products before choosing your way forward. Here in Module 3 we will explore the key delivery methods for content (video, audio, imagery and text), and then share what you need to know about websites, online classrooms and registration/payment. Please be aware there are many ways to get your course online, and new options are popping up every day. What we share here is based on our experience of the way we actually do things. 4

5 Your options for video Video is powerful when done well. It is also expected by many online learners, especially younger people who have been brought up using Youtube as their primary search engine. However, bad video is worse than no video, so it s worth spending some time getting it right. Filming Make Art That Sells with Lilla Rogers When it comes to video production, the sky is the limit. Class videos can be created at little-to-no cost on an iphone or desktop, or for many thousands of dollars for a full-blown professional production. At Do What You Love we invest a lot in video production, but in the beginning I did everything myself. It s fine to start where you are and do the best you can with what you have access to. Do it yourself Doing it yourself is a good option if you are creating your course on a budget, or want to add extra content when the course is live. However, be aware that video editing is a skill that takes time to learn. There are great tutorials on Lynda.com and Youtube, but consider whether doing it yourself is really the best use of your time. 5

6 If you want to film yourself, your main options are: (i) Record into your computer, using either built-in or add-on specialist software This is good for on-the-go class content, such as doing a video-based Q&A, or a short update video. Be aware of the lighting and background when recording, and be sure to use a good microphone if the built-in one isn t of sufficient quality. Also note that some software programmes reverse the image, so any text on view will show up backwards. If this happens it is possible to flip your image back using software such as Final Cut Pro X. If you are interviewing someone who is physically located elsewhere, Skype can work well as long as you both have a strong internet connection, and you shut down all other applications on your computer whilst on the call. You may need additional software, such as Skype Call Recorder, to record the interview. Don t forget to amend the recorder settings to record you in split screen if you want both of you on the screen. (ii) Use a video camera such as a GoPro, your iphone, a DSLR with video capability or a camcorder This is great for action footage, or shooting anywhere other than a desk! It is also good for creative demonstrations showing your hands. Just fix your camera to shoot from above with a tripod, and then speed up your video in post-production. If you are adding any audio description to a sped up video, this is best recorded separately as a voiceover afterwards. If you are filming outside, be aware of background noise, such as the wind or traffic, and be sure to use a good microphone. If you want to use a script, there are some great free phone apps available, such as iprompt Pro, which turn your phone into an autocue. My friend and talented filmmaker Ben Simon offers some handy tips on making great video on your iphone though phonevideoexpert.com. (iii) Screen capture using software like Camtasia or Screenflow to capture what is on your screen, along with audio Screen capture is great for technical demonstrations of anything you do on a computer, such as using design programmes. We use this extensively in our Make It In Design courses. You can also create a video based on a Powerpoint presentation by capturing your screen as you flip through the slides, and recording your voice as you go. 6

7 Go professional Working with professionals gives you a lot more scope for creativity and quality if video is not your area of expertise. It can really take the pressure off, and give you confidence in your content. Shop around for a videographer who is interested in what you are doing, and watch their showreel to make sure their style is a good fit. Watch videos you love and see whose name/logo pops up at the end, then reach out to them. Be aware that good people are usually booked up in advance, so get quotes in early. When planning your shoot, consider these three key styles of video: (1) Straight to camera, on location with a simple background or in a studio with a green screen (which allows any background to be superimposed afterwards). Here s an example from the opening video of The Business Soul Sessions which uses a very simple background and me talking to camera: password for video = hello (2) As a dynamic video with or without cutaways, where the on-screen images change but there is a consistent voiceover. Here s an example from Week 5 of the Do What You Love e-course, using shots of me in a café as cutaways to break up the talking head : (no password) This promo video for the Do What You Love course is an example of a dynamic video without cutaways: (no password) (3) As a demo video, showing a combination of close ups and wide shots 7

8 Here s an example. This is the promo video for PaperLove, an e-course we produced for book artist Rachel Hazell: I have worked with a variety of videographers in the UK and USA to film our e- courses. Here, the lovely folks from Broken Physics, who made the videos for this masterclass, share some tips for creating great video: Password: masterclass We have also prepared a handy break down of recommended kit (cameras, lights, sound equipment etc), based on different budgets. You can download this from the Resources page in the classroom. A note about hair and make up I always use a professional make-up artist when filming. It makes so much difference, especially if you are working with proper lighting and high definition cameras! Here you can see my good friend Helena Larsen from Sugarpaint Makeup doing my makeup for this masterclass. If you watch the whole video you can pick up some great tips for doing your own screen makeup, but feel free to fast forward if you just want to see the dramatic before and after! 8

9 Note: There is no password for this video Production planning Whether you are working alone or teaming up with professionals, it is worth planning ahead to get the most from your shoot. These are the key stages of video production you need to be aware of: 9

10 Pre-shoot stage First you need to develop your overall class concept (which this course will help you with) and then develop the concept for each individual video. You need a rough idea of what you want to achieve with each video, what you want to shoot, and how simple or complex it will be, in order for videographers to give you a realistic quote. On set with Portland-based Kevin Balmer of Diggable Monkey. Great videographers are worth their weight in gold. We often go back to the same teams/individuals over and over, because they understand how we work and what we are trying to achieve. Once you have an outline, prepare a brief for videographers and photographers and invite people to quote. Include as much info as you can including dates, venue purpose and aims, and turnaround time for post-production. Include the number of videos you want to shoot, along with an approximate time, and whether you will need them to source music*, provide lighting, use more than one camera etc. Consider shooting a promo video at the same time as your lesson videos to showcase the quality and get a major promo asset in the bag. (*See the Resources page in class for examples of sites we use to access rights-free music.) See the Resources page in the classroom for an example of a real brief we have used in the past to get quotes from videographers. Once you have secured your videographer, you can get onto story development and scripting. The more you can plan this in advance the easier it s going to be when you film. 10

11 Me in action. Bullet points or a detailed script? It s up to you! You don t have to script your videos word-for-word, but you should at least script bullet points. This is especially important when you are filming 5-10 videos at once it s really easy to miss something important, or get confused about the order of what you want to say. If you can provide the story information and draft scripts to the film crew in advance (or better still, involve them in developing your ideas) that is really going to help them do a good job for you. You then need to prepare any props you need, and think carefully about the backdrop for your video. If you need to rent a venue for your shoot, now is the time to get that secured. Draw up a production schedule with timings that allow for hair and makeup, costume changes, kit set up, practice runs and retakes, and coffee/lunch breaks. 11

12 Shoot stage The night before your shoot try to get a good night s sleep! Also, spend some time rehearsing what you want to say, so you feel prepared when on set. Helena Larson of Sugarpaint Makeup all ready to work her magic on me! Professional hair and make up can take longer than you think, so be sure to allocate enough time to this and ask your makeup artist to get set up early. On the day of your shoot, make sure you spend time making your background look good, and organising any props so they are to hand when you need them. Also consider whether you want to have a professional photographer on set. Clearly you don t want them snapping away while you are actually filming, but it can be great to have behind-the-scenes shots, and absolutely worth it if you are doing any kind of demonstration. Do factor in the additional time that will be taken up by photography. 12

13 When filming the PaperLove e-course with Rachel Hazell, we were blessed with the talents of Uli Schade, who photographed the many hundreds of tiny items involved with all the creative projects in the course. It can also be fun to snap a few photos on your phone to share on social media and give people a sneak peek of what you are doing, even if you aren t spilling all the beans until you formally open registration. Me on set, posting behind-the-scenes pictures of our PaperLove shoot with book artist Rachel Hazell 13

14 If you are presenting, try to have someone else watching the shoot. This could be your photographer or makeup artist, or someone in a producer role. They can keep an eye out for things like: Hair out of place Shiny face or other make up issues Wardrobe malfunctions Distracting habits, like rocking back and forwards, touching your hair, looking up to the sky, saying err etc Props in the way or missing Strange things in the background People in the background Distracting noises (all mobile phones off!) Time sensitive statements that will make your video go out of date quickly Presenting If you are terrified about appearing in front of the camera, you are not alone! However, there are a few simple tips, tricks and advice to follow that can help you be better prepared, which makes for a less stressful and more confident experience. Check out the Resources page in class for some top tips on presenting on camera. Post-shoot stage Once your shoot is over you move into post-production stage, which involves editing the video, adding any voiceover, music, on-screen text and start- and endslates. These are the slides at the start and end of your videos, which may feature your course logo, URL etc and perhaps credits for the video crew. Normally the videographer will also do the post-production, but only if you include this in your brief in the first place. In our videographer briefs we always make sure we include every job up to uploading final versions to our Vimeo account. Often a videographer will ask that you agree a maximum number of rounds of changes to the edited videos, usually two or three, before incurring any additional costs. 14

15 Be sure to watch every minute of every one of your videos, looking out for things like: Distracting actions Blurry images Mistakes Clarity of transitions where sections have been stitched together Start and end slates Working with professionals is clearly a more expensive option but the results are absolutely worth it, especially if you need close ups for demos, or you need wide shots for creating a particular atmosphere. If you need to edit the videos yourself, check out the list of software options on our Resources page. Have fun with your videos they are a great opportunity to get creative and really connect with you audience. Video hosting However you create your videos, you will need to host them somewhere online. As videos are very large files, it is normal to use an external hosting service like Vimeo and then embed the videos in your classroom. We host all our videos on Vimeo.com. It looks better than YouTube, there is great customer service, it is very customisable and it has really good performance. See the Resources page for current options. Note: If you use an e-course hosting platform such as Ruzuku, the video hosting may be included in their package of support. 15

16 Listen up Audio is often seen as video s poor cousin, but can be really effective for delivering long interviews, meditations or extended pieces of content that your learners might want to access on the go. Offering an audio version of your video content can be a valuable bonus that enables people to listen while driving or on the treadmill etc, rather than having to sit in front of their computer. Some learners really appreciate this. Most video editing software allows for the simple export of Audio Only files, so it isn t a lot of extra work to create audios from your videos. When creating audio files from scratch be sure to use a good quality microphone. Most computers allow for direct recording, but you can also use your iphone or specialist recording equipment. If you want to record an audio interview you can use Skype (audio only) with additional software like Skype Call Recorder. See the Resources page in the classroom for audio recording software and equipment recommendations. If you are sharing audio in a classroom it is usual for audio content to be downloadable, so people can put it in itunes and listen to it on their MP3 player. If you use a third party hosting system for your audios, such as Soundcloud, you can change the privacy settings to suit. If you are genuinely terrified of video to the point it is stopping you creating your course, audio is a really great alternative way to bring your class to life, so have a go with it! 16

17 If, like me, you love words, then you will probably want to include some text in your lessons. Text is great for detailed explanations, and is also readily editable (versus professional video which you cannot easily change once it has been shot, edited and delivered to you). There are a few ways you can include text in your course. Scrollable text, such as in a classroom post Most online courses that deliver text in a private classroom use a blog format for daily lessons. See Section 3.5 Tech made easy: Classroom for details. Example of part of a lesson from the Business Soul Sessions, where we use a different font style, colour and size in the main paragraph for impact, and then smaller text elsewhere. The white space provides a resting place for the eye. Remember that blog posts are usually not very wide, especially if you are using a sidebar to aid classroom navigation, so your lesson can quickly become very long. A long post means a lot of scrolling, which can be a pain for students. 17

18 Ways to get around this include: Be brutal with your editing and only include what really matters Give your text air by using short paragraphs, short-ish sentences and bullet points etc where they fit Use different font styles, colours, sizes and bold/italics etc for impact (but don t overdo it) Break up your text with graphics, if possible replacing chunks of text with a representative image. Horizontal (landscape) images work better than vertical (portrait) images as they take up proportionately less space. Handy tip: If you create your classroom in Wordpress there is a useful plugin called Print/PDF which adds an icon at the bottom of each class post/page allowing students to print the content or turn it into a PDF. Talk to your developer about installing this plugin on your site. As an audio or video transcript, usually in a PDF Transcripts are really valuable for a number of reasons: They help non-native speakers of your language, or people with hearing difficulties, get the most from your content They help people understand you if you have a strong accent They offer a text-based alternative for learners who don't like learning by listening or watching If students print out the transcripts and highlight key points as they go along, this can improve their retention and make more of an impact Transcribing audios and videos yourself takes a huge amount of time. This is one area where I would encourage you to use a professional service instead of doing it yourself. If you shop around there are some very reasonable transcription rates out there. 18

19 Additional content PDF If you have some really dense text that you need to share, which you think is too much for a post, consider putting it in a downloadable PDF (like a mini e-book). Example of a PDF provided in the Do What You Love e-course You can do this in a couple of ways: Put all your content in a Word or Powerpoint document and then do File > Save As > PDF. This makes it readable with Adobe Reader. Most websites will not allow you to directly upload Word, Excel or Powerpoint documents, but will permit PDFs. Work with a designer to lay it out more like a magazine, usually in Adobe InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator, which your designer then turns into a PDF for you to upload to your classroom Interactive worksheets The worksheets in this course were all created in Adobe Illustrator by our designer, and the interactive sections were added once it each worksheet had been turned into a PDF. Any good designer should be able to do this for you, either in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign. If you are doing everything yourself and are not comfortable with Adobe software, you can simply create your worksheet in a Word or Powerpoint document and turn that into a PDF (File > Save As > PDF), then invite your students to print it out and write directly onto the hard copy. 19

20 Make it visual The main options for imagery in your e-course are photographs (with or without overlaid text), artwork or graphics (including tables and other ways of presenting information, such as infographics). Putting text over images can also be powerful, and is something we do often. Here are some examples: A photograph with overlaid text used in a post in The Business Soul Sessions. It sets the tone for the lesson and offers inspiration to the learner. This is a stock photograph purchased from Stocksy.com with permission to use in this way. A fun illustration used to communicate the essence of an exercise about travelling light (from the Do What You Love e-course). Also refer to the illustrations used throughout this Masterclass to support the written content. 20

21 A hand-drawn set of doodle notes to accompany a video in the Do What You Love e-course (notes created by Melinda Walker of OneSquigglyLine.com) An infographic showing where the Do What You Love audience comes from Think about what would enhance your content and strengthen your messages. 21

22 Remember you only have three options for images: Use your own (things you have created, photos you ve taken, artwork you ve made, your own handwriting etc) Use Creative Commons or other rights-free images (always credit the creator and check the rules of use) Commission photos, artwork or graphics or buy them in from individuals or stock sources (always check the rules of use) or get permission to use other people's images with credit See the Resources page in the classroom for our favourite stock photography sources, along with some top tips for taking photos. You can also use bespoke graphics to support your classroom navigation and enhance the look and feel of your space. See Section 3.5 Tech made easy: Classroom for more info on this. It goes without saying that using other people s images without their consent is stealing, and you shouldn t ever do it. 22

23 Your e-course classroom Most online courses are run from a private classroom. The layout and design of your classroom can make a huge difference to your students experience of your course, so spend some time planning yours. We run all our classrooms on Wordpress as sub-sites of our main website, on bespoke themes we have designed for each class. This allows us to have complete control over the look and feel, the navigation and the functionality of our classrooms, and it means they are easy to replicate for future classes. Later in this section (under Set Up Option 3), I am going to show you exactly how we set our classrooms up so you can create yours in a similar way if you choose. However, before that, I want to mention that there are other ways of doing it, which are worth considering, as outlined in Set Up Options (1) and (2) below. Set up option (1): Run your class on an existing e-course platform As the online education industry grows, new course hosting platforms are popping up all the time. Some of the more well-funded and well-established ones like Ruzuku offer simple set up, a good level of design tailoring options and great customer support. 23

24 Depending on the package you choose, some also allow for unlimited classes and enrollments, payments via a variety of systems, and in-class webinars. Some even offer the opportunity to create a university where other teachers create and deliver courses under your brand. Most of these platforms are subscription-based, so have to keep paying them as long as you want your classrooms to be live on their site. If you find the right platform for you, this could be a great way to get your course out quickly, because the basic structure is there for you to tailor, and there will be technical support available if you get stuck. At Do What You Love we have bespoke Wordpress themes for all our classrooms and have all our systems in place, but if I were starting from scratch today I would definitely consider using a platform like Ruzuku to minimise the admin and website development side of things. However, it is important to be aware that if you choose this route, all your content which is an important business asset is sitting on someone else s website. In the beginning this may not seem like a big deal, but as your business grows there are increasing risks associated with all your real estate being at the mercy of somebody else s business. Set up option (2): Build it yourself on a free blog If you really want to bootstrap and get your course out there with the minimum level of financial outlay, the most basic way to do it would be to market and sell your course via a free blog and then create your classroom on a separate private blog. See the Resources page for examples of free blog platforms. In this case you would just your students the URL and password of your classroom when class begins. If you were planning a static/self-paced classroom which gives instant access upon registration, you would simply include the access details as part of your registration confirmation process. This method is virtually free (although some blog platforms do charge a low subscription fee), and it s pretty simple to set up. While I do know of a number of teachers who have used free blogs for their classrooms, I personally would not recommend this option for the following reasons: It can be less customisable Not all free sites allow you to use your own domain name You may end up with multiple URLs to contain all your classrooms, as you need a separate classroom for each time you run the course (versus having sub-sites within your own website if you go down the bespoke route) 24

25 There may be a limit to the number of people who can access your classroom if it is on a private free blog There may be a limit to the number of static pages you can have in your classroom It is less secure have a universal password, and revoking access to students (for example if they have been given a refund) can be difficult As with the e-course platforms in Set Up Option (1) above, all your content is essentially sitting on someone else s website. Depending on their terms and conditions, they may actually OWN your content, as a result of you posting it on their site. In the beginning this may not seem like a big deal, but as your business grows there are increasing risks associated with all your real estate being at the mercy of somebody else s business. And so to the way we do it: Set up option (3): Use Wordpress, and work with professionals to build your classroom All of our classrooms are built in Wordpress, which is the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites every day. Wordpress is an Open Source project, which means you don t have to pay a license fee to use it. Also, and perhaps more importantly, as you install it on your own site, you eliminate the risk of having your assets (your content) at the mercy of someone else s business. Wordpress offers a high level of design control through the use of themes. Themes provide all the front-end styling for your site (i.e. what the visitor sees) including the overall design, fonts, colours, page layouts, blog post styles, blog archives, widget locations and additional stylistic details. You can either work with a professional designer to create a bespoke theme (which is what we do for all our sites and classrooms), or you can use one of the thousands of free or low-cost theme options available. See the Resources page for further info about Wordpress. Wordpress also offers a relatively straightforward back-end solution, so you can update your site and classroom yourself, rather than having a developer do it for you each time. This is absolutely crucial, as you will make many adjustments to your course content and sales pages over time. At its heart Wordpress is a very simple system, but its functionality can be extended with the use of Plugins. There are many thousands of these available, to support anything from online shops to portfolio galleries, from membership forums to social media sharing. 25

26 Don t panic! If this all sounds overwhelming, let me share a secret. Until just a few months before I started Do What You Love I didn t even know what a blog was. I had absolutely no idea about technology, and had never heard of Wordpress. If I can do it, so can you! I cannot stress enough the importance of finding a good web developer to work with as you build your website and classroom. Treat them as a member of their team, pick their brains, involve them in your ideas and ask them to offer solutions. You don t have to know how to do all this. You just need to know enough to ask the right questions to a professional who does! Ask around for recommendations, search online for professional digital networks, or scroll to the bottom of your favourite website and see who created it. Before you hire anyone, make sure you look at their portfolio, check they are familiar with Wordpress or whatever system you plan to use, and speak to existing clients to find out what they are like to work with. And remember, you get what you pay for. A good web developer is worth their weight in gold. This is how we do it I m going to explain step-by-step how we create our online classrooms. At end of this section you will find a short classroom tour so you can see how it fits together. If any of this sounds too technical for you, just share it with your web developer to help them understand what you want to do. Setting up a new classroom When setting up a new classroom, we create a new sub-site within our main website, and install the bespoke Wordpress theme we have had designed for that class. To get this theme created we do the following: (i) (ii) (iii) Sketch out the look and feel of the classroom with all the relevant sections we need. Liaise with a professional designer to get our sketches turned into Photoshop files, laid out exactly as we want the classroom to look. The designer will prepare a list of notes for the developer, including details of colours, fonts and header styles to be used. Liaise with a professional web developer to turn the design into a working classroom. The developer s brief includes making the classroom work on mobiles and tablets. The rest of the notes in this section will help you sketch out your own classroom design, so you can then work with a designer and a developer to bring it to life. 26

27 First you need to design your classroom. The most important thing to consider is usability. How can you make your classroom visually appealing, yet easy to navigate, so it supports your learner s experience rather than hampers it? Think of it as a real room. When people open the door (by logging in) for the first time, what will they see? Is it obvious what they should do, especially if class hasn t started yet? What about later on when class is in full flow and they want to go back to an earlier lesson? Is it obvious how they do that? In this section I am focusing on setting up a semi-live class (which starts on a set date and runs for several weeks). Later I will share a few tips on the additional things to consider if you are setting up a static/self-paced/instant access classroom. Navigation We use two navigation menus, one across the top and one down the side. These are the TOP NAVIGATION and the SIDEBAR NAVIGATION. In most of our classes, the top navigation includes a Class link, and links to each of the themes or weeks of class, and the sidebar includes links to various pieces of administrative information, such as resources. You can see an example of this below, in a screenshot from our classroom for The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design Module 1 classroom. 27

28 You can determine what appears in the TOP NAVIGATION using APPEARANCE > MENUS in the back end. You can determine what appears in the SIDEBAR using APPEARANCE > WIDGETS in the back end. If you drag an IMAGE WIDGET to the sidebar section, you can add an image and link to the relevant page. If you want to use graphics in your sidebar navigation (such as in the examples above and below), be sure to include this in the brief to your designer. We use titles like Home, Class, Daily post or Latest post in the navigation to ensure that students can always easily access the latest class lesson. It is also possible to switch the navigation so your weekly themes sit in the sidebar, and your administrative info is reached via the top navigation. This is what we do for the Do What You Love e-course classroom (see screenshot below). Either is fine, it s simply a design choice. Of course you could set up your class navigation in many different ways, including using a left hand sidebar. It s really up to you and your designer. 28

29 Pages and posts We share content in the classroom in two key ways, as PAGES and POSTS. Pages are static, and are usually accessible in the classroom from the first day of class. We use these for administrative information, such as the class schedule, details about the community, and guidance on what to do if you have a question etc. Posts are dynamic and work like a blog post. We prepare all the class content as daily lessons, and then schedule the posts to go live on the relevant day of class. If you want to deliver your content in this way, select SETTINGS > READING > Front page displays > Your latest posts Normally we will publish a welcome post ahead of class, so when students first log in, this is what they see (below). This is what a set of upcoming class posts look like in the back end, scheduled and ready to go (from a Make Art That Sells class): Wordpress allows you to upload or embed a variety of media into a page or post, including video, audio, text, images and PDFs. To do this on a page or post, go to ADD MEDIA > NEW. You may need certain plugins installed to allow particular kinds of media. Your developer can help you with this, depending on what you need. 29

30 Categories We create categories for each week of class, and assign each lesson post to a category. We then ask our developer to do some technical wizardry to automatically archive the posts under the relevant category as they go live. This gives a tidy archive which allows students to easily navigate to earlier posts at any time. Your developer should be able to do this for you. Alternatively you could create a static page for rounding up links, and manually add these at the end of each week of class. An snapshot of archived posts from the Do What You Love classroom. This is what you would see if you clicked on Week 3: Be brave. Come alive. Here is a quick tour of the Do What You Love e-course classroom, front and back, so you can see how all these pieces come together, and how it looks on the inside. 30

31 For static classes If you are setting up a static class, you can still use the blog posts functionality to deliver your lessons, but instead of scheduling them for future dates, you will need to publish them all. This is how you make all content instantly accessible when learners log in. Make sure you consider their experience when they first access the classroom. Instead of a daily post, it is more appropriate for them to see a static page which will help them navigate around the site. Here s an example of the static page students see when they log into our static/self-paced classroom for Make Art That Sells Part A. If you want to deliver your content in this way, select SETTINGS > READING > Front page displays > A static page > Home (and then use the Home page to guide students around your classroom, as in the example above). 31

32 Once you understand how you want your students to feel in your classroom, and how you want your classroom to work, you are ready to engage a professional designer to turn those ideas into a classroom design. If you don t know any designers, a good place to start is looking at a website you love, then scrolling to the very bottom to see who designed it. Try to be as specific as possible when communicating your ideas. Share visuals if you can (sketches, a moodboard etc) as this will really help the designer get what you are after. Look on Pinterest or design-seeds.com for colour palettes you like, and share these with your designer. Make sure it fits with your overall brand. The more information you can give your designer in terms of your content (topic themes, lesson titles, actual content etc), the quicker they will get to a final design. If you don t give them any real text they will use dummy text, but having them design with real content will give you a much more accurate picture of your final classroom. A designer will usually allow 2-3 rounds of amends at no additional cost. Once you are happy with your design, your designer should provide Photoshop files and fonts to your developer, so they can make your design live as web pages. Be as clear as you can with your developer, and be sure to request that they build to the point that your classroom actually looks like the design, and offer a level of tutoring on how to use your site. This sounds obvious, but often developers will actually only put the basics in place, and assume you will fill in the details (like customising sidebars and menus etc). It makes your life a lot easier if you can get them to do this for you in the first place. Crucially, make sure your designer and developer prepare your site and classroom to be responsive to a variety of devices, including tablets and phones, as people don t just learn on their laptops. The earlier you can involve your developer in the process the better. Although the majority of your work with them will be in Step 3, it can really help to have a chat early on when you are trying to decide how you want your classroom function. A good developer will proactively offer creative ideas and solutions. 32

33 Once they have handed the site to you, it is then up to you to populate all the pages and posts, and schedule the content for your first class. Replicating classrooms In the beginning, creating your classroom takes a fair amount of work. However, subsequent runs of the same course are much more simple. There are various ways to replicate a classroom, including: (1) Export your original classroom > Create a new sub-site > Import the original classroom to the new location (2) Use a plugin such as BlogCopier to do the hard work for you Your developer will be able to advise what is best for you, and install any necessary plugins. Classroom security There are various ways to make your classroom private. If you want a universal password for your classroom, you can do it using Wordpress plugins such as Basic Authentication or Private Blog. Alternatively, if you want your students to have individual passwords, you can set this up using a membership plugin. Your developer should be able to advise you on what is best for your particular requirements. Getting inspiration The best way to get your head around how online classrooms work is to take some e-courses from other people! That way you will understand what navigation you like and what you don t like, and how you want to organise your own course. 33

34 Community options Some courses benefit hugely from having a private community space where students can interact with each other and, if you so choose, with you. If you set the right tone, and provide supportive guidance, e-course communities can be powerful spaces for connection and personal growth. The main options for e-course communities are: (1) Bespoke forum (for example using a Wordpress membership plugin like BBPress or Buddypress to create a forum within your website/classroom) (2) Forum facility within an existing e-course platform (for example if you use a platform like Ruzuku to create your classroom, you can provide a forum within that) (3) External forum using the membership model, such as a group on Ning (4) A private group on a social media platform such as Facebook See the Resources page in the classroom for more details on each of these options. The pros and cons of using Facebook At Do What You Love, after much research, experimentation and discussion with peers, we always come back to using Facebook groups for our class communities. The main reasons for this are: It s free, fairly user-friendly and intuitive for learners Many people have Facebook on their phones and check daily anyway 34

35 Facebook offers the option for class-related notifications to be pinged straight into the Facebook app to prompt students to get involved Students can comment on your posts, comment on other students posts, add their own posts including images and videos, and like posts too. They can also share documents in Facebook groups. This means there are lots of opportunities for engagement, even for the most shy students. Your students can friend and message each other directly if they choose to, which encourages connections and support As Facebook is independent of your classroom, you can keep the community open even after class has finished. This means that people in your class have indefinite access to the connections and valuable info that has been shared in that Facebook group. Some of our classes have several hundred people in them, and Facebook is an incredible way for them to connect with each other, get support and advice when they get stuck, and to build their confidence thanks to the generous feedback others give them. Many deep friendships and business relationships have been forged in the Facebook groups of our classes, and that is something we are really proud of. Of course there are some downsides. Not everyone likes Facebook, and ultimately Facebook owns your community space. However, it is unlikely that Facebook is going to disappear completely anytime soon, so for now we will continue to use this as our first choice for class communities. The main challenge with Facebook is that the younger generation don t use it as much, so if you are targeting young people you may need a different solution. Platforms ebb and flow in popularity, so it s worth consulting your target audience to find out what they are already using. I have taken several courses where they use bespoke communities, but in every case the community has died off after the course, and often there has been a lot less engagement even when the course is on. Why? Because people have to make a conscious effort to log in and use it. When it comes to deciding what kind of community you want for your class, if any, spend some time thinking about the purpose of it. How essential is it for your class and what do you need it for? How will it enhance their experience? What benefit would they get from connecting with others in class? Will it be a vehicle for you to connect with your students, or will it primarily be for them to talk to each other? 35

36 How to set up a private Facebook group Here s how to set up a private Facebook group for your online course, in a few simple steps: Firstly log in as yourself. If I was starting over I would definitely create a new Facebook account to use with my courses, because when class is on my own feed is flooded with class notifications and I completely lose track of my friends and family! Of course you can turn notifications off, but then you don t know what s going on in the group without directly checking in. Open up your personal Facebook account, and click Groups in the menu. The full list of groups you are in and groups you manage will pop up. Click Create group, choose a group name, and then choose your Privacy setting. For our courses we choose Closed group which means other people can see the group and who is in it, but not what anyone posts it. Then hit Create and you are done. You can then personalise your group by adding your course logo or another image as a header. Create a welcome post and then add regular posts during class. You can pin your posts so they stay at the top of the group feed. Your Facebook group will have its own URL which you can find in your browser. Just copy and paste that into your classroom as a link. Set up a dedicated Community page in class and include a link to the group there. When your students click on it they will be taken to Facebook where they will need to click a button to request to join the group. As the group administrator you will then see a notification pop up in your Facebook account saying that they have asked to join the group, then you can let them in. Be aware that if you have a large class, people who are not registered will probably ask to join. This is because in their newsfeed they will see their friends joining a group which sounds interesting and they may try and join too. It s therefore really important that you check whether they are registered or not, and you can opt to ignore someone s request. Don t forget to set some ground rules and stick to them. You may want to include some community guidelines in your classroom for reference, to set the tone and let everyone know what is expected of them. As the administrator of the group you are perfectly entitled to delete any posts which stir up trouble or are offensive in any way. This is really important. Remember you have a duty to the majority of people in your class to hold that space for that class. So, what do you think is the best community option for your ideal learners? 36

37 Registration + payment options In order to sell your course online you will need: A shopfront or checkout mechanism (either on your own site or through an external provider) A way of taking payment and confirm registration (either using a secure payment gateway service like Paypal, Sagepay or Stripe, or by accepting credit card payments through a merchant account) A way to tell your students how to access the classroom, either immediately or when your course is scheduled to begin (ideally integrated into your management system) The more integrated you can make these three pieces of the registration puzzle, the easier your life will be, and the smoother the process will be for your students. There are multiple ways that you can register students and take payment online. I encourage you to chat to your developer about what option might be best for you. Here are some of the most popular options: Use the built-in registration system on your e-course platform (if you are using a service such as Ruzuku). This will integrate with external services like Paypal or Stripe for payment, and 1ShoppingCart or Infusionsoft for orders and data management. Use event registration software like Eventbrite to manage your registrations. There is a plethora of options available for this. See the Resources page for links. Use your marketing system for registration. This is possible through marketing systems like Constant Contact, Mailchimp, or Infusionsoft. The advantage of this is that your students data goes straight into your database. Use an all-in-one membership site and registration system. The advantage of using a membership system like Membermouse is that it can be customised to allow and revoke access to your classroom on an individual basis, which offers a higher level of security for you. Create a shopping cart on your own website. This is the most technically complex but most customisable option, and is what we use. See below for details. 37

38 How we do it In the beginning we used Constant Contact as our management system, and registered people for courses using their Event registration service. However, as our student numbers grew, we wanted to segment our data to a much greater extent than Constant Contact would allow, so we moved to Infusionsoft. In our early days with Infusionsoft we used their Order forms combined with a simple sales page on our website to register students. Payment would be taken via Paypal, and student data would be automatically updated in our database. This worked to some extent, but it was clunky because we had to set up new order forms for each course, and could not offer individual login for our classrooms. As the business grew we felt it was worth investing in a more sophisticated system. This is essentially a custom-built shop run with WooCommerce, which sells via our website. This is integrated with our Infusionsoft account using a plugin called InfusedWoo, and a number of additional plugins to support specific aspects of the process unique to our particular set up. Payment is still taken via Paypal, and we can generate all kinds of financial reports, along with detailed reports about our class participants. The main advantage of our new system is that it provides individual accounts for students on our website, so they have a unique login for our site, and access to all their courses in one place. This is much more secure than having a universal password for classroom access, and it allows us to revoke access if students are given a refund for any reason. My advice for you is to shop around, take a few courses to understand the user experience, and talk to your developer to see what makes sense for you. Be aware that you will need a business bank account to trade using services like Paypal, and it can take a while to get set up and verified before you can start receiving substantial sums of money. It s worth getting all this in place well ahead of time. 38

39 As I said at the beginning of Module 3, technology is your friend, but it can be daunting. Think of it like a jigsaw. If you don t understand any of the pieces, just ask someone who does. This checklist features the key puzzle pieces you will need to sell your course via a Wordpress website: 39

40 And this checklist outlines the key steps you will need to take to set up your classroom on a Wordpress website: The Resources page in the classroom gives you links to various software and service options for you to investigate further. Things in the digital world change all the time, and there are so many intricacies to the process so make friends with your developer and ask them anything you don t understand. Download the worksheet below and make notes as you go through the list to create your own delivery roadmap. 40

41 Avoiding the tech headaches In the same way that posh delis offer a no-bread sandwich i.e. the filling without the bread what if there was a way of having an online course without the technology part? Well, there is. Me in producer mode If all this talk of technology has you running for the hills, you could always consider pitching your content to someone who will deliver it for you. That could mean paying someone, like a freelance producer, to do that side of things. This could be on a one-off fee basis, or on a profit share basis (which is how we work with our collaborators). 41