The Accidental Techie's Guide to Creating Awesome Online Learning

The Accidental Techie’s Guide to Creating Awesome
Online Learning Experiences
Julia Campbell
Maureen Wallbeoff
Daphne Lagios
March 14, 2019

LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Understand how to design online trainings including courses and
webinars
2. Evaluate different online learning tools and platforms
3. Apply best practices from examples and case studies
@JULIACSOCIAL @TECHSOUP @MEETMAUREEN #19NTCLEARNING

COLLABORATIVE NOTES
Add your notes to: http://po.st/learning-19NTC
Tweet along!
@JuliaCSocial
@TechSoup
@MeetMaureen
#19NTCLearning

GLOSSARY OF TERMS
1. Active Learning – encourages students to participate in the training
2. Asynchronous Learning – students can take courses anytime
3. Blended Learning – a mix of self-paced learning with instructor-led components
4. CEU – continuing education unit
5. Just In Time Learning (JIT) – bite-sized chunks of training, usually job-related
6. Learning Management System (LMS) – the system that manages the creation, storage, and delivery of
online learning content
7. Learning Objectives – description of what the student should understand after the training
8. Learning Outcomes – description of what the student has actually learned
9. User Experience (UX) – all aspects of the end-user’s (student’s) interaction with the system

ONLINE LEARNING LANDSCAPE
As of January 2018:
55,000+ courses on Udemy
2,000+ on Coursera
6,200+ on Lynda
Source: https://ahrefs.com/blog/online-marketing-courses/

PET PARTNERS
Pet Partners is the nation’s largest nonprofit for volunteer teams of animal
handlers that provide animal-assisted interventions.
The Pet Partners curriculum trains and evaluates volunteers and their pets
for animal therapy programs that visit facilities such as hospitals, veterans’
centers, courtrooms, schools and more.
https://petpartners.org/learn/online-education/
Software: Ziiva’s Prosperity LMS

COMPTIA
CompTIA (Computing Technology Industry Association) is a nonprofit IT
trade association.
It provides IT education and certification, advocacy on behalf of the IT
industry and philanthropic resources that support employment in IT for
disadvantaged people.
https://certification.comptia.org/training
Software: Skillsoft donated its IT Skills Courseware collection to CompTIA

FOUNDATION CENTER
Foundation Center provides free and low-cost online courses and tutorials to
teach critical fundraising, research, and grant proposal writing skills.
http://foundationcenter.org/improve-your-skills/foundation-center-training
Software: Instructure’s LMS, Bridge

PRESBYTERIAN MEDICAL
SERVICES
Presbyterian Medical Services (PMS) provides medical care, counseling,
education, child/senior services, home care and hospice to the underserved
communities of New Mexico.
They needed a platform to manage annual staff training requirements as
well as report out to multiple funding and regulatory agencies on a regular
basis.
https://elogiclearning.com/work/presbyterian-medical-services/
Software: eLogic’s eSSential LMS

PART 1: PLANNING THE
ONLINE LEARNING
EXPERIENCE
Julia Campbell
www.jcsocialmarketing.com

WHERE TO START?
1) Purpose
2) Audience
3) Topic
4) Title and description
5) Learning objectives

STEP 1: DEFINE THE PURPOSE.
Why create this online training?
What is this for?
Training to sell - Revenue generation
Scaling a training that you already do
Client Education
Outreach/awareness
Train the trainer

STEP 1: DEFINE THE PURPOSE.
What are the pain points you are solving?
What are the results you are going to get for your students? BE SPECIFIC
I am creating this course to solve a real and specific problem, and that
problem is:
FILL IN THE BLANK

STEP 2: IDENTIFY THE
AUDIENCE.
Build something for a specific audience.
Who are your students? What do they want?
What is important to them?
Why would they participate?
What is the problem that they are seeking to solve?
How is your course the solution?
Where is my course audience in this very moment?
Where are they starting out?

STEP 3: CHOOSE THE TOPIC.
What is the topic?
Is it relevant?
Is this is something that we see as a need and our community has verified it?
Choose a topic that resonates and is relevant
Not everything that you know in one course – chunk it out
Can’t be too broad

STEP 4: TITLE AND
DESCRIPTION.
Think marketing and promotion
Think searchability and keywords
Think about the terms, words, language that your audience actually uses
Brand Recognition
Differentiation
Learning Objectives & Expectations: Many people decide before they even
get into the description of a course

STEP 4: TITLE AND
DESCRIPTION.
1. Look up popular search queries
2. Grab attention first
3. Make your audience a promise
4. Create a sense of intrigue
5. Don't sacrifice clarity for creativity
6. Get them excited about learning!

“BEFORE AND AFTER”
FRAMEWORK
What does a prospective student have before taking your course?
What will they have after they finish it?
How does a prospective student feel before taking your course?
How will they feel after they finish it?
Who are they before taking your course?
Who will they be after finishing it?

“BEFORE AND AFTER”
FRAMEWORK
Title: Homestretch Hit List: Creating Your Retirement Paycheck
Problem: No ongoing paycheck in retirement, will run out of money after a
few years in retirement
Promise: Create your “retirement paycheck” so you can live like you are still
working
Before: Afraid, anxious, desperate, disillusioned, angry
After: Secure, relieved, optimistic, educated, confident, in control, prepared

STEP 5: LEARNING OBJECTIVES.
Brief review of Bloom’s Taxonomy (we will include it in the collaborative notes
for the session)
What makes a great learning objective
How to edit yourself and avoid the curse of knowledge

EXAMPLE: SOCIAL MEDIA 101
After completing this course, you will be able to
Understand and identify the factors to consider when choosing social media
platforms to suit your nonprofit’s fundraising goals, resources, and staff
capacity.
Understand the current social media landscape and the
strengths/weaknesses of several of the major social media platforms.
Understand how social media platforms fit in with your overall nonprofit
fundraising plan/infrastructure, including your CRM/database, website, and
email communications.

After completing this course, you will be able to:
Identify and apply effective strategies to build an engaged audience using
social media.
Identify and understand 5 things nonprofits should do to standout in a
crowded social media landscape.

Identify and understand the root causes of the six most common challenges
that nonprofits face when using social media;
Understand how to address these challenges within your unique
organization’s ecosystem;
Apply solutions and best practices to implement an actionable plan that
addresses your organization's social media challenges

Understand how to set goals for your organization.
Identify the metrics that need to be tracked in order to measure your
organization's progress towards goals.
Create your own Social Media Measurement Spreadsheet for your
organization.
Identify and understand basic tools available for measuring social media
outcomes.

After completing this six-week course, learners will be able to:
Identify and analyze a wide variety of social media marketing tactics and
platforms.
Evaluate the effectiveness and relevance of various social media strategies
for your organization’s social media goals.
Apply best practices and methodology for creating an effective and
workable social media marketing plan.
Build a 12-month social media marketing calendar that fits with the action
plan.

STEP 6: FORMAT AND
DISTRIBUTION
Facilitated learning
Self-paced
Blended
What does the support look like?
Forum, private Facebook group, 1 on 1support in a private group?

STEP 6: FORMAT AND
DISTRIBUTION
Choosing an LMS
1. Consider your audience
2. Consider your objectives
3. Evaluate features: Ease of use, reporting, integrations
4. Read reviews
5. Take advantage of free demos and trial periods

STEP 7: MEASUREMENT AND
EVALUATION
How will you determine the success of your course or online learning
experience?
End-user adoption
Final project
User surveys
Gaming – TechSoup awards points for assignments accomplished
Anecdotal data
Testimonials

Part 2:
TechSoup
Case Study

. © TechSoup Global | All rights reserved33
NGO Tech Marketplace - Solutions for Nonprofits

August –
eLearning program
launched to support
Marketing & Community
July – Changed
our business
model
February – Launching
TechSoup Courses –
Australia and New
Zealand
November –
TechSoup Courses
formed into a separate
program under TechSoup
Services
September –
Launched our first
300-level cohort-
based course
June –
Launched TechSoup
Courses - Kenya
TechSoup Courses – Our Story
2016 2018 201920182017 2018

FROM LEARNING TO DOING
TechSoup Courses – Beyond the Webinar
What does the future hold?
400 level courses: mix of online and in-person workshop

Lessons Learned 1 - Developing a unique persona
Why should we exist?
• How are we different from all the other online learning resources?
• Completed over 20 deep interviews with learners to understand their
real needs & challenges
• Entire team committed to a 3-month design thinking project on
developing a unique value proposition
• Results
• Insights that helped us re-orient our Content, Partner and Revenue
strategies
• Critical decision to only work with nonprofit experts
• Global standards and localized examples

Lessons Learned 1: Learner Profile
• This learner is the only employee for a small, new nonprofit - she does everything for her nonprofit in Utah.
• “Anytime I can gain knowledge, it can help me in anything I do.”
• She got her degree at age 49. (She had done one year of school, got married and had kids, didn’t go back to
school until her youngest was a junior in high school.)
• Over the years, she has seen the importance of constantly refreshing her skills and she tries to stay ahead of
the curve in her organizations. “When we finally got Windows in the 90’s, I had to teach people how to use
a mouse… The more word processing programs I got certified in, the more jobs I could get.”
• “If you see technology these days, you have to keep learning, or you get mowed down.”

Lessons Learned 1: Our LMS needs to work for our learners!

Lessons Learned 1 : Our learners need to identify with our experts
❑ Experienced with the nonprofit world
❑ Passionate
❑ Smart
❑ Accessible
❑ Our partners
❑ Reliable
❑ Responsive to learners
❑ Push us to grow
❑ Able to develop different level courses

Lessons Learned 2 - Developing a content strategy
How will our content help nonprofits meeting their mission goals?
• Focus on solution-based courses
• Micro-learnings – meet the learners at the pain points
• DIY approach – most learners are volunteers
• Align with the TechSoup mission to help nonprofits with their Digital
Transformation
• Focus on three areas – People, Process and Technology
• Results
• Content is more tightly associated with all other services provided by TechSoup
• We are able to provide nonprofits with more complete solutions
Tech Planning + Cloud Consultation + Office 365 licenses + Microsoft solutions bootcamp +
Tech Implementation
Technology
Process
People
Training

Lessons Learned 3 – Logistics, logistics, logistics
Fundraising Software Seminar Series with Maureen Wallbeoff
• Operations:
• Scheduling
• Collecting documents/assets for the course
• Setting up live events
• Communication with SME
• Communication with the learners
• Practice event and live event
• Time for checkins and feedback
• Followup after course –what could we have done better?

Lessons Learned 3 – Logistics, logistics, logistics
Fundraising Software Seminar Series with Maureen Wallbeoff
• Course development
• What kind of course is this – pricing/enrollment strategy
• Catalog
• Building the course
• Marketing
• Communication with the learners
• TechPoints
• Certificate
• Branding – badges, logos
• Pre and post evaluations
• Communication to learners

Lessons learned 4 : Community Building
• Success of 300 cohort level course
• Implementing cohort module as part of
course development for disaster
resiliency CDF
• Listening to our global partners –
workshops, how to use online learning to
facilitate in person meetings – pre work,
connections etc
• Continued communication with our
experts – What are the newest trends?
What are the they are seeing?
• Continued communication with our
learners – every interaction is an
opportunity to learn about your members

PART 3: ORGANIZING THE
COURSE CONTENT

STEP 1: BRAINSTORM
Sit down and do a brainstorm.
Google Docs
Brain dump
Tabled items

STEP 2: ORGANIZE
Write down the 4 or 5 steps or modules that will make up your course.
What are the 4-5 overarching steps students need to take to make
that transformation happen?
Underneath each step, write down 2-3 lessons.

STEP 2: ORGANIZE
What are the learning objectives of each module?
What will each lesson teach?
What materials could enhance the experience for the learners?

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING 201:
HOW TO BUILD AN ENGAGED
AUDIENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Self-assessment, glossary, welcome video, overview
Module 1: Set your organization’s goals
Module 2: Identifying your audience
Module 3: How to build audience-centric social media content
Module 4: Strategies to stand out
Evaluation and quiz

STEP 3: STREAMLINE
Make sure everything flows
Start-middle-end
Does it get them to the results
Are you seeing a Roadmap from start to finish?
Will they be able to follow along?
Is it too much information?

STEP 4: ENHANCE
Add cheat sheets, blueprints, checklists, resources
Find areas where you can add extra support
Assessments
Quizzes
Polls

TIPS TO BECOME A GREAT
TRAINER
Your attitude often plays a huge part in how well (or not) a student is
absorbing your material.
Put yourself in your student’s shoes – they are adult learners with full brains
and extremely low attention spans.
If you’ll be testing their knowledge, tell them that up front. Include details
about how they’ll be assessed so they know what to expect.
If a learner seems resistant, don’t call them out in public. Have a private
conversation about what’s going on.
Use silence to increase participation.
Praise, praise, and praise some more!

INDEX CARD EXERCISE
What is ONE THING that you can commit to doing in the next month to get
your online course off the ground?
If you want to be held accountable, write down your name and email
address.

The Accidental Techie's Guide to Creating Awesome Online Learning

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