LMScast

We’re excited about introducing the LifterLMS Weekly Free Giveaway! Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett tell you how to enter and what you can win in this LMScast.

The LifterLMS team is passionate about online education, and we depend on feedback from our user community. The more users we can collaborate with, the more innovative and useful our software becomes. So we will be giving away developer’s licenses for everything we make.

At LifterLMS we believe our course development platform and support software is the best of its kind, because we really listen and respond to innovative education entrepreneurs like you. Here’s what you can win:

You get a 5 developer’s license for each of the following that can be used on 5 sites:

• LifterLMS – Learning management system and course development platform

• Stripe – Credit card acceptance and processing extension

• Infusionsoft – Business automation system extension

• MailChimp – Automated email marketing service extension

Our users have been a vital resource in helping us make LifterLMS an amazing online course development tool, and we want to show our appreciation through this weekly giveaway. You can help us expand our community and make LifterLMS even better by using our software and sharing it with other edupreneurs.

Entering is easy – Just go to LifterLMS.com/giveaway and follow the simple instructions. As you share the giveaway link with other users, you increase your own chances of winning. We’ll announce a winner each week, and you can enter again and again.

Our LifterLMS course development platform and support software lets you quickly and easily develop effective online courses, and we appreciate your help in introducing the LifterLMS Weekly Free Giveaway. It’s going to be a fun event, and we’re looking forward to welcoming you into our user community.

If you’re looking for WordPress LMS themes that work with WP learning management system plugins, then listen to this LMScast episode as we talk about understanding the purpose of themes and making the best choices for designing and developing your online courses.

Themes and plugins perform different tasks. A plugin executes a specific function, while a theme creates the visual experience for the user. A lot of current designers are building plugin-type functionality into their themes that makes them difficult to use with some plugins.

The LifterLMS plugin is compatible with most themes, but some of the existing themes recommended for use with this plugin are the WooThemes Canvas design theme and the Genesis framework by StudioPress. The LifterLMS development team is also designing their own theme, which will be available soon. The development team is also working on an advanced framework for developers called Lifter Launchpad, plus they are releasing an online course-specific web application.

WordPress LMS themes that work with WP learning management system plugins make developing and scaling your eLearning courses much simpler, especially if you use a course development platform like LifterLMS.

You can attract, convert, and maintain students for your online courses using effective email campaigns. This LMScast with Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett will help you learn how to understand email options in learning management systems, and how you can use the LifterLMS platform to get started.

The 3 basic categories of email campaigns you will learn to leverage are marketing, transactional, and onboarding. Marketing emails are used to describe your course offerings to prospective students and help them decide which courses to take. Transactional emails handle purchase verification and welcome messages. New students are then oriented into the course with onboarding emails.

Automating essential email tasks becomes crucial as your course offerings increase, so LifterLMS has email handling built in. It is also compatible with systems like MailChimp and Infusionsoft to allow you to scale your eLearning business. It’s important to keep your systems simple, so focus on the options you need most to implement and grow your online courses.

Begin by writing your email messages as if you are talking directly with students, and think about the kind of experience you want them to have with your courses. Visualize an entire university operating inside of your learning management system: marketing, admissions, students, instructors, and areas for students to interact with each other.

Starting out with LifterLMS allows you to develop and manage one or two courses right away. Then as you learn how to understand email options in learning management systems more completely, LifterLMS can expand through its compatibility with other platforms. Try a demo of LifterLMS at demo.lifterlms.com and see for yourself what it can do for you.

Your online courses will benefit greatly from your understanding of the concepts behind exponential education entrepreneurship. In their book, Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World, Steven Kotler and Peter Diamandis explain exponential entrepreneurship, and this LMScast episode outlines their 3 core factors that will make your course offerings exceptional.

Technological entrepreneurs have built billion dollar enterprises using three progressive factors that you can use for your online course development:

• Exponential technology

• Flow dynamics

• The power of the crowd

Exponential growth expands quickly, and is made possible by technologies like the Internet and mobile phones. These developments have made eLearning accessible to a global audience, so your online courses can be available to just about everyone on the planet.

Flow dynamics is a framework for creative thinking that you can use when designing course content and shaping the learning experience for your students.

The power of the crowd describes crowd funding and community building. Each of your students is an individual, but together they form a learning community. You can use that understanding to create an eLearning environment that supports both.

These concepts of exponential education entrepreneurship work together to form a dynamic balance of technology, flow and people, which is driven by your own passion for your subject. Working with this knowledge gives you unprecedented power in developing your eLearning course, especially if you use a course development platform like LifterLMS.

The way an online course is designed has a big impact on how engaged students will be with the material and whether they will complete the course. In this LMScast Joshua Millage and Chris Badgett discuss how to use the Fibonacci sequence for instructional design to set the pace for your course.

Keeping students engaged and motivated can be a challenge for teachers, and your course completion rate could suffer if the cadence of your content does not match with students’ interest levels and how they naturally learn. If you deliver your content too slowly, students could become bored and lose interest. But if you deliver too much content all at once, students could become overwhelmed.

Students are the most interested and motivated right after they’ve decided to take a course, and that motivation settles down as the course goes on and students are consuming your content. The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where the next number in the sequence is the sum of the previous two numbers. Starting with 1, the sequence is 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and so on. This sequence occurs frequently in nature, such as in the spirals of a snail’s shell and the arrangement of seeds on a sunflower.

Using the Fibonacci sequence for instructional design will match well with the way students naturally learn and their interest levels. And you can build the sequence into your course by dripping content in this type of pattern, with more content delivered at the beginning of the course and then slowly spacing the content out a bit more as the course goes on.

LifterLMS is a learning management system plugin for WordPress that has built-in functionality to handle drip content and engagement. You can use the system to space out your content, automatically email students to encourage engagement, and award badges and certificates for lesson or section completion. You can try a demo of LifterLMS at demo.LifterLMS.com to see for yourself what it can do for you.

If your dream is to make a living from home with your own location independent business, then you need to hear this LMScast. Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett tell you from their own experience how to be a digital nomad by creating and selling online courses.

A location independent business runs from wherever you are. One option is to create online courses using a development tool like LifterLMS to build your courses and automate basic tasks. You have to work and you have to hustle, but you can learn to do this by realizing there are different ways to generate income.

Start by forming relationships with people who share your interests so you can create the valuable courses they want. Next learn about online business so you can build it yourself without paying someone else for those services. Then start creating your course.

Pre-selling a pilot course to a few students is a great way to start. Your test group will teach you how to build a successful course, and they will enjoy having your full attention. You can start making $1,000 to $2,000 each month, and your earning potential will increase as you scale from there.

You have to know why you are doing this and how you want your life to be. A clear vision of what you could do with a flexible work schedule from home or while traveling will really drive you. Looking at existing online course lists at sites like Udemy will help you decide how to put your course together.

The best thing about a location independent business is profiting from something that excites you and sharing it with others. Our LifterLMS course development platform will help you build your courses quickly and easily so you can enjoy your students, your interests, and your life.

If you are looking for course building software, this podcast will help you in your evaluation process. This LMScast episode with Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett focuses on WordPress LMS reviews in online forums and how users feel about the LifterLMS course development plugin.

There are several vital points to consider when choosing a course development platform. The most discussed topic in user forums is ease of use and investment of time in building their courses with available development tools. The LifterLMS Course Builder interface is clearly a winner with users who find the tool fast and easy to use, and visually attractive as well.

You also want to choose the best tool the first time, so you don’t ever have to start over and rebuild your courses and support systems in a new platform. One of the best indicators of a solid tool is the team of developers who created it. The LifterLMS development team is a diverse group of people who are passionate about learning, and who consistently gather feedback from online reviews and also maintain their own user forum. They make frequent platform upgrades based on the needs and wants expressed by a wide variety of LMS software users.

You may be thinking of offering free online courses right now, but what if you wanted to offer paid courses in the future? It would be wise for you to think ahead and choose a constantly evolving LMS system that you can grow and expand with. Make sure your software choice also includes an integrated eCommerce system that is easy for you to implement and simple for your students to use. The LifterLMS platform has eCommerce built in, and users love its stability and simplicity of use.

Lots of LMS softwares limit you to using their software bundles with limited options. With LifterLMS, your choices are open and limitless. You can integrate elements from your own course materials, quizzes, certificates, external resources -- including multimedia -- and completely customize the look and feel of your online course environment.

Compare for yourself all the LMS options available, read all the WordPress LMS reviews in online forums, and you will find that LifterLMS is clearly the best course building tool you can buy. We even offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you decide you don’t love it. Try the free demo and discover what LifterLMS can do for you at demo.lifterlms.com.

Have you considered adding a social network to your online learning system? This LMScast looks at BuddyPress Courseware for WordPress and how it works with learning management systems like LifterLMS.

BuddyPress is a social network development plugin designed for online learning environments. A social network can enhance your online courses by allowing students to create profiles, participate in course discussions, and stay in touch with their instructors. It also provides for blogging, activity feeds, visual media, and private messaging, much like Facebook.

Your network can include groups, subgroups, and forums for specific courses, as well as a social network for everyone in your system, plus free access and paid membership areas. It’s an exciting option, but only if you have a need for it. A social network requires a lot of direct involvement and could be more work than it is worth for your learning environment.

If your students are enthusiastic about their subjects, giving them a place to discuss that with other equally involved students will enhance their learning experience. A social network also helps new students become involved more quickly, and provides a place for support and mastermind groups.

An online learning-based social network makes instructors more accessible to their students, and students can more easily interact with each other no matter what their daily schedules are like. BuddyPress Courseware integrated with a course development platform like LifterLMS can help you create a thriving, successful eLearning community for your students.

Today on LMScast we're starting an interview series with people who we admire in the learning management system space, and who are just altogether incredible people in online education. Listening to customers’ feedback and measuring results is important for moving a business forward the right way, and we value the feedback from our LifterLMS customers. Today Joshua Millage discusses online education with Diana Young.

Diana is a LifterLMS customer, and she shares her experience setting up a course with LifterLMS and her initial surprise with how easy the software made the process of creating the course. She was skeptical at first, because all softwares say that they’re easy to use. But she was pleasantly surprised that LifterLMS really delivered and made it easy to set up her course!

Some people think online education and internet marketing are all about making money. While other people want to teach in order to help spread knowledge and make the world a better place. Those two perspectives can exist in harmony, and an online entrepreneur can make money at the same time they’re teaching and helping other people.

It can be easy to get confused by the difference between beliefs and values. In Diana’s mind, a belief is a way that you think the world is. Whereas a value is a vision of a way the world could be. So what we believe tends to shape our behavior, but what we value tends to shape our choices.

We have some amazing members of the LifterLMS community. If you are a customer listening to this interview, and you have an incredible story that you'd like to share about what you're doing with LifterLMS, we’d love to hear about it. You can reach out and find us at www.LMScast.com, and we can schedule a time to tell your story here on LMScast.

If you don't own a copy of the LifterLMS WordPress learning management system plugin, you can purchase a copy at www.LifterLMS.com. We'd love for you to be a part of our community and share your wisdom with the world.

If you are a Tim Ferriss fan and an eLearning developer, you need to hear this LMScast episode which outlines his 5 principles for accelerated learning and how they apply to building online courses.

Tim Ferriss is a best selling author whose books include The 4 Hour Work Week, The 4 Hour Body, and The 4 Hour Chef. His new TV show is called The Tim Ferriss Experiment and includes an episode about how he achieves accelerated learning. Our LifterLMS WordPress plugin is designed on these principles, and anyone who is developing online courses will benefit from knowing them.

Principle 1: Deconstruction, means breaking overwhelming skills down in order to process them easily, as you should do when designing your online course.

Principle 2: Selection, is based on the Pareto Principle and means to focus on key elements of a subject. This will keep your online course design from becoming too information-heavy.

Principle 3: Sequencing, means to try new and different approaches to learning that make failure less painful, so students are more likely to make an attempt.

Principle 4: Stakes, is about setting a goal with consequences, such as tests that determine whether a student progresses or not.

Principle 5: Simplify, means offering students one unit of a subject to master before going on to the next one.

These 5 principles of accelerated learning allow Tim Ferriss to do the amazing things he does, and they will work for you in developing your eLearning course, especially if you use a course development platform like LifterLMS.