LMScast

This LMScast will help you decide between an email mini-course versus an evergreen WordPress LMS course. Learn the advantages and applications each format offers and choose the best course type for what you want to teach.

Email mini-courses are a great way to get started fast by offering simple, introductory content you can deliver through automated email. You can also test content and get feedback to create an evergreen WordPress LMS course. With a development platform like LifterLMS you can offer features like student login accounts, discussion forums, tracking, testing, and certification.

However you build your courses, you have to market and sell them, and that comes down to selling yourself as an instructor. Students need to feel a connection with you, and an email mini-course can establish that rapport. Students who like you, trust your expertise, and enjoy your teaching style are far more likely to progress into your in-depth LMS-based courses.

Curriculum determines which format you should use. You can deliver detailed information and theory for behavior modification courses using an LMS format, while an email mini-course is better for basic step-by-step guides. Our LifterLMS platform lets you add on tools to create and automate an introductory email mini-course that integrates and upsells to an expanded evergreen course.

Our Course Blueprints mini-course at LifterLMS.com can help you decide between an email mini-course versus an evergreen WordPress LMS course. Try a demo of LifterLMS as well to experience how the LifterLMS plugin for WordPress helps you make your good courses great.

Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett talk about how to organize online course production in this LMScast episode. Joshua has created 4 classes to teach you how to organize your course development process by making an outline before you start putting it all together.

Building a structured framework saves time and frustration by keeping you on track and progressing smoothly. A tool like WorkFlowy will step you through the process, or simply make a Word document. But you really need a map to follow instead of wasting time and energy flailing, and working from an outline will make your courses flow.

Develop the basic curriculum based on your students’ needs and requirements. Then do research, build lessons and decide on content. Make multiple passes so your mind can assemble and refine each segment, and work within your high-energy windows. You want your delivery and presence to be dynamic to maintain student engagement, retention, and completion.

Working from an outline prevents you from trying to do too much in too little time by defining tasks into workable steps. It also aids everyone working with you in creating audio, video, and visuals by defining your concept and batching and coordinating their tasks. Your courses will be much more appealing as a result of organizing and pre-planning all production elements.

Building a course involves curriculum, content, publishing, and marketing, and Joshua’s classes will show you how to organize your online course production. Using a development platform like the LifterLMS plugin for WordPress will make your experience much more satisfying. Try a demo of LifterLMS and see for yourself what it can do for you.

069: How to Build an Engagement Machine with Learners and Prospects by Chris Badgett

This LMScast with Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett is about presenting great content for eLearning communities. We’ll show you how to build an engagement machine with both learners and prospects in mind.

An engagement machine is a dynamic system for keeping in touch with current students and prospecting for new ones. It lets you share information in a one-to-many format by repurposing content for multiple distribution channels to reach a broader audience.

Actively discover and/or build communities. This is a powerful way to bring value to current students as well as show prospective new students what you can offer them by contributing useful, accessible information to ongoing discussions.

Learn to use video as a primary tool. Video is a superior knowledge transfer device, because it’s the next best thing to being there in person. It allows you to connect in a real and personal way with your viewers and establish vital trust relationships.

Engage with social media communities where your students already live and interact, or build your own. Offer opt-in email newsletters, podcasts, and blogs for interested prospects. Find and create opportunities to present yourself directly with clarity and expertise.

Finally, maintain your human touch by taking just 10% of your overall time and effort for personalized one-on-one communication. Make a phone call, attend a meeting, be present for your students in some way.

The LifterLMS platform includes all the tools, options, and support you need to start learning how to build an engagement machine with learners and prospects. Try a demo for free and see what LifterLMS can do for you.

In this LMScast Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett share their predictions for 2016 eLearning industry trends, the LifterLMS project, and WordPress and online education in general. They discuss 3 definitive aspects: the importance of user experience, the expansion of WordPress, and the growth of the eLearning market.

WordPress is on its way to becoming a primary online education content management system. The developers of LifterLMS are leveraging their understanding of the LMS user’s experience to build new, innovative tools based on a progressive, functional, and adaptable framework.

One new offering from LifterLMS is LaunchPad, which makes the process of adding themes to your framework easier than ever. Opening the software to the development community allows for an endless supply of outstanding themes for the product.

Learner experience is often overlooked, but designing for learners determines the ultimate quality of online courses. Users can learn a great deal about what their students need through monitoring usage of lessons and quizzes, and by tracking site analytics.

A broad spectrum of customers and businesses are using WordPress for courses and training, and mobile devices make eLearning accessible on a global scale. The new LifterLMS support service, Boost, creates and publishes your online courses fast so you can enter the market sooner.

From individual edupreneurs to large companies, the 2016 eLearning industry trends will inspire you to get on board with online courses using tools like the LifterLMS plugin for WordPress.

You’ll find fresh ideas for course development in this LMScast episode with Joshua Millage and Chris Badgett. In this discussion you will learn how to use online courses to create a community around your product or service.

Joshua and Chris recently interviewed Kim Albee, founder and president of WP Marketing Engine, about how she onboards new customers and receives valuable feedback using the LifterLMS development platform integrated with BuddyPress to provide discussion forums, training, and user guides for her marketing automation software.

Online courses add value in helping new clients get started, and users often find solutions in community forums, so you spend less time on customer service. You can also find testimonials and case studies from your client’s postings. The LifterLMS demo at demo.lifterlms.com is a fine example of an online course used as a promotional application, as customers get to explore the software fully before they buy.

Online communities engage users through innovation and shared experience while giving you valuable input toward improving your products. Your FAQ section also provides you with a basis for online course design.

Watch previous LMScast interviews with Kim Albee and with Michael Eisenwasser of BuddyPress to learn more about how to use online courses to create a community around your product or service. And try out the LifterLMS demo to experience what it can do for you.

Most entrepreneurs dream of having a passive income stream, and creating online courses is one way to create passive income. But actually taking the knowledge you have and getting it into an online course can be daunting. In today’s LMScast Joshua and Chris go through the 5 steps to creating a killer course.

The first step is giving your students a specific breakthrough or learning outcome. When you focus on the specific outcome your students will get from your online course, you’re creating a clear starting place, and you will increase engagement with your students.

Step two is to use a course structure that makes sense for your content. There are different course blueprints that fit with a course that is intended for behavioral change or for one that is reference-based or for a process-based course. The map you lay out to guide students through your course will make a big difference in their engagement and success with your material.

Applying blended learning for different learning styles is step three. Not everyone learns in the same way, and you’ll increase student engagement and course completion when you utilize a multimedia format for your courses. With LifterLMS it’s easy to include images, videos, audio files, downloads, and quizzes along with your text.

The next step is to increase student interaction and interest through gamification. When you introduce the badges and certificate a student can earn when they are first starting your course, you are positioning those to the student up front as awards they can work toward and earn. Setting up the path of achievement in this way makes the learning process more fun for students and encourages them to achieve those awards.

The final step is to find ways to keep students engaged, even after they have left the course. In order to keep your tribe strong, you need to keep the conversation going with your students and show them that you care about how they’re doing.

When you follow the 5 steps to creating a killer course, you’ll be creating an exciting and compelling learning environment for your students. And when your students are learning and having fun, they’ll be engaged and want to come back for more!

In this LMScast episode Christopher Badgett and Joshua Millage talk with founder and president of WP Marketing Engine Kim Albee about how to use online courses to add the value of training and support for your products and services. Kim uses LifterLMS with WP Marketing Engine to create training, user guides, and community discussion forums for their software users.

Onboarding new customers is a smooth process with WP Marketing Engine. When a new customer subscribes to the marketing engine platform service, they create an account. Then LifterLMS assigns them to a membership category, gives them access to the courses and community for that level, and manages their progress.

Training is presented in short, clean course segments with clear user guides and responsive support. Basic level members have open access to introductory classes, user guides, discussion forums, and media libraries. A Pro Class is available for an additional fee, and Conversion Pro members get priority technical support. Then LifterLMS sends information and offerings to customers at their membership levels.

Providing online courses for your products and services establishes communication and trust with your customers, encouraging them to pursue higher levels of training and community participation. Kim Albee is enthusiastic about the value that learning how to use online courses added to their business, and integrating with LifterLMS helped WP Marketing Engine realize their goals for user support.

Christopher Badgett talks with BuddyPress expert Michael Eisenwasser in this LMScast episode. Michael runs BuddyBoss.com, and he’s here to discuss how to build online social learning environments using BuddyPress.

BuddyPress lets you expand the eLearning experience with a dynamic Facebook-style interactive space. The LifterLMS course development platform offers built-in BuddyPress integration so you can easily include social learning in your course design. And BuddyPress is fully customizable to your specific needs.

You can emulate the classroom experience in your online learning environment, or employ blended learning by combining online coursework with in-person class meetings. Social learning also makes interactive education available to students who don’t have physical access to a classroom. Providing a social element is especially helpful for teaching niche subjects, and beneficial for students who are unfamiliar with online learning.

There are extra administrative tasks for social learning environments, such as promoting and building your community, setting access permissions, eliminating spam, and moderating group discussions and activities. But with planning and implementation you will be able to support a thriving social network of fully engaged eLearners.

BuddyPress is a free, open source WordPress plugin, and Michael encourages course developers to download it and discover all it has to offer. Once you learn how to build online social learning environments, you’ll realize just how valuable they can be to your online course offerings.

Many people encounter “beasties” of fear and doubt that keep them from building their businesses. In this LMScast Christopher Badgett interviews MamaRed Knight of Tame the Beasties in a delightful discussion of how to repurpose your content into online courses and get past “expertitis.”

In her years of experience MamaRed has learned that the message comes first, and technology exists to deliver it. If you know who and what to teach, you can then decide how. She suggests starting by visualizing your ideal student and talking with them to discover what they like and dislike in their learning experience.

Next you can create content and build your course based on “tweet-sized tidbits” of what you know about your subject. Those tidbits can be repurposed in a variety of ways by starting simply and working your way up, or by starting with everything you know and simplifying it into basic tips.

Disabling doubts and fears are like “beasties” that prevent you from reaching your full potential. You may think you don’t know enough, or if you have “expertitis” you know too much to organize your thoughts. MamaRed’s mission is to help you learn how to repurpose your content into online courses and get past “expertitis” so you can present your knowledge and passion effectively, and have fun doing it.

Our LifterLMS course development platform lets you easily and intuitively build courses that are personal, interactive, and engaging. We can help you put the fun into online learning!