Coursify

Got great content?

Want to give people a new way of engaging it?

Create a course.

A course is a great way to share your knowledge or teach people processes or ideas.

Elements of a Course

A course is different from an ebook. It is different from an instructional video. It is different from a Powerpoint presentation.

It may include all those things.

But a course – a good one, anyway – is formatted for instruction, not just information.

It is sliced into digestible chunks known as lessons or modules (or sections, or some other name that suits the purpose).

Those modules contain content formatted to provide learners with a challenge or quest.

They are paced so that learners engage the content, then take some sort of action. The action might reinforce their knowledge of the content, push them to new knowledge beyond the content, or call on them to do something with the new content.

Courses contain these very important “challenge loops” because they are intended to provide meaningful, measurable improvement for the learner in some important performance area.

The Prove-It Factor

Courses give learners the opportunity to provide proof of what they’ve learned – or the good ones do, anyway.

Whether it’s in the form of an assessment (quiz, for example) or an archive (demonstrate the new skill and share it with the world), courses create a process of learning that results in a distinct, notable outcome.

Coursify Your Materials

If you have content now – an ebook, a video series, technical manuals – and you’d like to turn it into a course, here’s the fairly simple process we use to coursify good stuff:

• Figure out the goal from the audience’s point of view (what do they want to accomplish as a result of taking the course)
• Develop the steps between the “current state” (what we expect the audience to know now) and the finish line (what they will know after completing the course).
• “Slice” your materials into segments that match the information learners need to move through the steps.
• Develop instructions – assignments, challenges, questions, self-assessments – that lead learners to take action. (Quick note: More is better. Frequent challenges enhance the experience. “Passion loops,” providing challenge > direction > insight > achievement, work especially well. We call it the “Oh, crap” > “Oh, wow!” loop (h/t the incomparable Kathy Sierra for the original framework).
• Provide a forum or format for learners to show their wares.
• Provide feedback – personal or automated – that guides, corrects, or reinforces the learner’s performance.

If your stuff’s good – if people are paying you for it now or asking for it now – this provides a great way to spread the information, a new avenue for revenue generation, and a great form of engagement with your audience.

If you’d like to work with us to coursify, let us know. We’ll take a look.