If you’re thinking about creating your first e-learning course, you may be feeling a little overwhelmed. There are so many decisions to make! How do I even get started? What should I consider? What do I need to know?

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, this chapter is for you. In it, we cover all the things you need to consider when starting your first e-learning course.

Let’s get started!

Before diving into the details of creating an e-learning course, let’s look at the big picture. What is an e-learning course? And what does it look like?

An e-learning course is a collection of content that teaches a specific skill or body of knowledge. The content may include text, graphics, videos, audio clips, interactive simulations and games, and quizzes and tests.

You might even create “mashups” of different media to convey complex ideas more interestingly. The overall experience is usually guided by one or more goals or objectives that learners complete during the course. For example: “By the end of this course you will be able to….”

It’s important to keep the course objective in mind when you create your content. Don’t just create a bunch of stuff that you think is cool. Create stuff that meets the needs of your learners.

In addition to content, e-learning courses usually include course navigation, tracking, reporting, and instructor tools for managing and delivering the course. Now that you have a sense of what an e-learning course looks like let’s look at the details.

What You Need to Know

Before you start creating your first e-learning course, you need to know:

Your learning objectives

The specific skills or knowledge that your learners will learn during the course. The objectives should be clear and specific.

For example, “By the end of this course, learners will be able to…” or “Learners will be able to explain the differences between powerpoint and keynote presentations.” Avoid using phrases like “learners will be able to learn…” or “learners will become more effective…”.

These objectives are too vague and don’t help you determine what content to include in your course.

Your target audience

Who is going to take your course? It may be individuals from one department or division, people from different departments or divisions, or a mix of people from different departments and divisions.

If you’re creating a course for internal employees, you might want to consider how the content will be used in the workplace. For example, if your course is about team collaboration, what are the business problems that teams need to solve?

Or if your course is about teamwork, what are the roles of different team members? What are their responsibilities? How do they interact with each other? What kinds of problems do they encounter?

Your content

The resources you have available to create your course. For example, do you have a collection of PowerPoint slides that you can use in your course?

Do you have some training videos or online tutorials that will be helpful for learners? Are there any graphics or images that can be reused in multiple sections of your course? You might even have an online forum where learners can interact with each other and ask questions.

Your instructional design model

How are you going to structure your e-learning course? Will it be linear (that is, sequenced from beginning to end)? Or will it be modular (a collection of separate units that learners can take at their own pace)?

Once you know these things, it’s time to create your first e-learning course.