Create an online course
When it comes to creating online courses, Disco makes it easy by helping you effectively plan and structure your course curriculum. Selecting the right course platform is crucial for content delivery, student engagement, and selling online courses.
Once you’ve identified your online course idea, gathered your content together, and decided on a structure and business model, you can start building right away and learn as you go.
Choose your online course format
Disco offers a few basic templates to help get you started in creating content: cohort-based course, self-paced course, event series, and blank. Within these templates, you’ll have plenty of flexibility and customization available to really make it your own.
When selecting the appropriate format, consider the course topic to ensure it aligns with the chosen format. Since we’re looking at cohort-based courses in this playbook, we’ll go with that!
Live events
Even if you don’t choose the event series template, we highly recommend including events to create a successful online course. You can both host live events and release pre-recorded events to give your learners plenty of flexibility in determining how they want to absorb your content.
Live events are something really special in Disco since it’s such a great way to connect with learners in an online learning setup. Disco can fully integrate with whatever hosting platform you like, from Zoom to Google Meet; you can even host in-person events and still track and record RSVPs all through Disco.
Here's how you can add live events to the Disco platform:
Feeds and announcements
Within your Disco dashboard, you’ll find your announcement feed right off the bat. This is the perfect place to call out any new courses, events, or features that you want to educate your learners on. It can also be a great spot to announce new cohorts, special awards, or graduating classes (yay!).
Highlight new courses and content
The announcement feed is the ideal place to showcase new courses or modules you’ve just added. By regularly updating your feed with new content, you can maintain a steady stream of engagement with your learners, ensuring they’re always aware of the latest offerings and updates.
Whether it’s a brand-new course or a timely addition to an existing one, your feed ensures no one misses out on valuable learning opportunities.
Promote upcoming events
Planning a live Q&A, workshop, or guest speaker session? Your announcement feed is the go-to spot to build anticipation and excitement. By promoting upcoming events well in advance, you give learners ample time to prepare, register, and participate. This not only drives attendance but also creates a buzz within your community, fostering a sense of involvement and anticipation.
Celebrate achievements
Your announcement feed is also the perfect place to celebrate the milestones within your learning community. Whether it’s announcing the launch of a new cohort, recognizing special achievements, or celebrating graduating classes, these updates add a personal touch to your online course environment.
Public recognition of achievements, like awards or certifications, can boost morale and encourage continued engagement, reinforcing a positive learning culture.
Expert Tip: You can spotlight the top-performing members from your leaderboard, showcasing those who excelled in your virtual class. With Disco AI, you can effortlessly generate the entire post and share it with your cohort in just seconds, keeping your community motivated and engaged with minimal effort.
Share important updates and features
If you’re rolling out new features or making significant changes to your course structure, the announcement feed is your communication lifeline. Use it to inform learners about updates, such as changes in course schedules, new tools or resources available, or modifications to course content.
Keeping your community informed ensures a smooth learning experience and minimizes confusion or frustration.
Encourage interaction and community building
Announcements aren’t just one-way communications; they can also serve as conversation starters. By inviting feedback, comments, or even questions on your announcements, you create opportunities for interaction and discussion among learners. This can transform your feed from a simple notification tool into a vibrant community hub where ideas are exchanged, and relationships are built.
Expert Tip: Utilize Disco AI suggestions to generate suggested replies for member queries, allowing you to manage your community efficiently within your course platform. This feature can also be integrated with Slack, streamlining communication and enhancing your ability to support your members effectively.
Tailor announcements for specific groups
With Disco, you can customize your announcement feed to target audience within your learning community.
Whether you want to send a message to a particular cohort, alumni, or a specialized group, tailored announcements ensure that the right people get the right information at the right time. This feature is particularly useful for managing multiple cohorts or for providing exclusive content to premium members or alumni.
Use visuals and multimedia for impact
Enhance your announcements by incorporating visuals, videos, or infographics to make your messages more engaging and easier to digest. A visually appealing announcement is more likely to catch the eye and hold the attention of your learners, ensuring your message gets across effectively.
Disco’s integration with various media tools allows you to create and share rich content effortlessly, making your announcements not just informative, but also visually compelling.
Keep learners motivated
Consistent communication through your announcement feed can play a crucial role in keeping learners motivated. Regular updates, encouragement, and recognition remind learners that they’re part of a thriving, active community. This ongoing connection helps to sustain momentum, reduces drop-off rates, and fosters a sense of belonging, which is key to the success of any online course.
In summary, the announcement feed within Disco isn’t just about relaying information—it’s about creating a continuous dialogue with your learners, building community, and enhancing the overall learning experience. Use it strategically to keep your learners informed, engaged, and motivated throughout their educational journey.
Use AI to create better course content faster
AI is a game-changer for online course creation. With AI tools at your disposal, you can whip up high-quality content in no time; it’s like having your own personal assistant that runs on pure caffeine, but the caffeine is the Internet, and it never runs out.
Additionally, AI can help manage and revise course material effectively, ensuring your content stays relevant and engaging. Let’s dive into how Disco AI can help you speed up a course content creation process.
Create images
Disco AI’s design tools can help you create stunning visuals in a snap. Just feed in your requirements and watch as it creates eye-catching graphics that align with your course’s content and tone: no in-house hire is required.
Generate course outlines
Disco AI can analyze your course content and go the extra mile to write up course outlines and summaries, suggesting an optimal structure and ensuring a logical progression that encourages eager learners. It can also generate topic headings and summaries, making your outline more comprehensible and engaging, and making your life just that much easier. (You’re welcome.)
Create course descriptions
AI writing assistants like Disco AI can help you articulate your course’s value proposition clearly and engagingly. It easily analyzes your course content and generates descriptions that highlight the key benefits and learning outcomes all clearly and straightforwardly that your learners will appreciate.
Here's an example of generating a lesson using Disco AI:
Create content for your cohort-based community
Once you have your course format and content ready, the next step is to create online courses to engage your community. Creating a profitable online course involves understanding your audience's needs and conducting thorough research before development. Here are the key steps in Disco:
Step 1: Create a detailed course outline
- Navigate to the 'Courses' tab in the main menu and click on 'New Course'.
- In the dialog box, enter the name of your course in the 'Course Name' field, and provide a short description in the 'Course Description' field.
- Make sure your description gives your learners an overview of what they can expect from the course.
- Expert Tip: Struggling to write a content description? Put Disco AI to work!
Step 2: Create the first three modules
- Start by clicking on ‘Add Module’ to start building your course modules.
- Separate your modules by breaking them out into sections of your course. You could do this by week, by topic, or whatever makes the most sense for your course.
- Add a name that accurately represents what people will be learning, and add a brief description—we recommend including key learning objectives, topics you’ll cover, and any prerequisites.
Why three modules? Unless you have comprehensive course content already, three modules can be a great start to see how things go. It’s always a good idea to pause and get some feedback on course length, content, and structure before going too far, especially when developing your first online course! After that, you'll be ready to sell online courses that resonate with your audience.
Step 3: Add various types of learning content
- To really amplify your learning content, add different mediums to enhance the overall learning experience.
- This can include text, images (think infographics) to make visual learners happy, videos for detailed or complex information, live events to drive engagement, quizzes to gauge understanding… you get the idea.
- To get started, click ‘Add Content’ on your lesson; a new window will open where you can choose your content and then upload it or even create it directly in Disco using either Disco AI or your good ol’ brain.
Step 4: Develop an evergreen content library
- You’ve worked hard to create your content; now make sure you make the most of it.
- Create a knowledge base for all your content with an evergreen library.
- You can adjust share settings depending on your privacy and membership levels; open it up to all learners, or gate-keep certain sections for alumni or paid members by utilizing your groups and sub-groups.
Up next: Sign up and organize your members – drive membership and designate groups for maximum organization and engagement.
Ready to start your cohort-based course? Sign up and create your own Disco account, free for 14 days!
Drive membership and designate groups for maximum organization and engagement.
Chapters
Part I: Cohort-based courses 101
Discover why cohort-based learning is more effective and drives higher results. This model fosters a sense of community building, encourages collaboration, and provides a structured yet flexible learning environment.
Part II: Why create a cohort-based course with Disco?
Understand the key benefits of a cohort-based learning model thoughtfully integrated with AI. With Disco, online academies can offer cohort-based online courses featuring live classes, personalized learning pathways, enhanced student interaction, and much more.
Part III: Defining your social learning program
Step-by-step instructions to set your online course up for surefire success. Learn how to integrate social learning elements in your cohort courses and foster a sense of community among your learners.
Part IV: Create your course
Course creation 101, plus tools like events and AI to give your content a boost. Discover how to structure your online cohort-based courses effectively and leverage innovative tools to enrich the cohort learning experience.
Part V: Sign up and organize your members
Drive membership and designate groups for maximum organization and engagement. Learn how to manage your cohort-based programs to ensure smooth communication and collaboration.
Part VI: Set the stage for high engagement
Encourage collaboration with the power of AI gamification and multiple interactive tools. Create a dynamic learning environment in your online course cohort that keeps learners motivated and involved.
Part VII: Grow your learner base and results
Analyze key learnings to continuously improve and iterate on your learning experience. Utilize data-driven insights and student feedback to expand your reach and enhance educational outcomes.
Part VIII: Run, iterate, and scale
Learn productivity hacks to expand and grow – without extra effort. Implement strategies to scale your cohort-based online learning programs efficiently.
Ready to supercharge your cohort-based courses?
Disco is specifically built for modern orgs who want to easily and quickly create cohort-based courses that engage learners. Is that you?
