so you want to make an online course but you're not a big fan of being on camera a presentation
based course could be a great fit for you the presentation based course is one that you build
using your recorded voice over a recording of a slide presentation of your course material it's a
great option if you're just starting out because it's a bit easier and less time-consuming than
setting up a full video production not to mention it's less intimidating in this video I'll walk you
through how to prepare and organize your course info into a solid outline so you can build an
amazing presentation let's get into it hello creators I'm Ben Toalson from Podia where we
empower creators like you to make a living doing what you love in this video series I'm breaking
down the process of making a presentation based course from start to finish including outlining
building slides scripting recording editing and publishing the first and most important
step happens before we even open our presentation software and that's creating a course outline your
outline is so important because it informs the structure of your course including the number of
modules how many lessons are included in those modules and how much information you'll share
in each lesson this outline will also give you a clear picture of what slides you'll need and
could even serve as the actual contents of your slides I'm gonna break the outlining process down
into three stages define the journey identify milestones mark the path we're going to use
podía free course outline template as a guide I'll include a download link in the description
below I call this first stage define the journey because that's exactly what you're doing for your
student you're helping them get from where they are to a specific destination or goal you define
the journey with the title of your course the title should answer these questions who is your
course for the answer to this question makes it clear where the journey begins and should
include signals about the type of person your course would help and what struggles they might
currently be experiencing examples could include design professionals looking to advance in their
career startup founders trying to raise funds or tired parents of young children who just want to
take a nap oh my gosh I would buy that course what results should your student experience the
answer to this question makes it clear where the journey ends and how life will be different or
better once your student arrives relating to the previous examples your course might help
that design professional get promoted fast or help that founder build a network of funding
support or that tired parent finally gets some sweet sweet Z's seriously if you make that
course I will give you my money you don't have to include all of these words in your title but you
want it to be clear enough that the right person knows your courses for them and will get them to
their desired destination now you may be thinking that's great Ben but how do I know who needs my
course and where they want to go you discover the answer by engaging with people and listening when
they share their struggles a few ideas include visiting discussion forums around your topic
browsing the comments section of other leaders in your industry and creating content that drives
discussion in fact one of the ways we determine what kind of video content we want to make here
on the podium is by engaging and listening to our viewers once you define the journey and chosen a
title write it at the top of your course outline template or use it as the title of your document
where you're creating your outline this is one of the most important things to get right when making
an online course so take your time on this step the second stage is identify milestones milestones
are significant markers along your students journey they can include learning specific
skills different categories of information or major steps in the process as an example I'm
going to use a course titled how to turn your hand lettering art into physical products there
are many steps between a blank page and a physical product on a website but in this stage we want to
just focus on the major milestones a person who takes this course should encounter the following
tools and techniques for hand lettering how to digitize your artwork how to edit and format
your design where and how to upload and sell your design within these milestones are many smaller
steps but organizing it this way helps your student tackle that leg of the journey without
feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing these milestones will serve as modules I recommend
having no more than four to five modules in your course once you've chosen your modules
go ahead and write them in the module section of the course outline template or list them as
the major sections of your outline the third and final stage is mark the path I'm really trying to
go with this whole journey theme here in this stage you're gonna break each module down into
lessons the goal of a lesson is to provide enough information to help your student feel like they're
taking another step closer to their destination you don't want to break a module down into too
many lessons but you also don't want to try to cram the entire module into a single lesson in
the example I used in the hand-lettering course the module how to digitize your artwork could be
broken down like this how to prepare your artwork for digitizing how to scan your artwork into your
computer how to set up your digitized artwork for editing each of these could end up being
a three to four minute lesson breaking it down this way helps your student focus on one step
at a time keep your students experience in mind as you determine the right granularity for your
course material once you've chosen your lessons write them down next to the corresponding module
in the template or below the corresponding module in your outline we're gonna skip the
content format section for now now you've got a solid course outline that will guide you as you
build your course because we want to turn this into a presentation we're gonna add one more
step to this process now we're going to break each lesson down into bullets that could actually serve
as the contents of your slides don't worry too much about getting the wording perfect you can
always go back and edit or tweak that later as an example in this step I'm gonna break down the
lesson how to prepare your artwork for digitizing my bullet points for this lesson could look like
this carefully outline your letters with a thin point black marker pull curved lines and push
straight lines it's okay to use a ruler go slowly erase the pencil wait for the ink to dry erase
lightly to avoid damaging the paper touch up the outlines look for lines that are not connected
look for lines you may have forgotten fill in the outline use a slightly thicker black marker
to fill in the outline once you have a good margin use a thick black marker to fill in the remaining
blank space examine your paper once again for any leftover pencil marks don't worry if you make a
mistake you can always fix that later these are bullets that I'll definitely cover in my script
for this lesson but I could actually use the same text from my slides along with example images of
each step I can't stress enough how important and helpful it is to follow these initial steps it'll
give you clarity and set you up for success in each stage of the course creation process in a
future video I'll walk you through how to use what you've created today to design your course
presentation if you have any questions as we go along please leave a comment if you found
this information helpful be sure to subscribe to this channel and hit the notification bell
so you'll be sure not to miss any future videos thank you for watching and I'll see you next time