Can AI create my Online Course for me?
The other day, I was chatting with a friend who told one of her clients about my new Calm Course Creator course, and her client said, “Well, I can just ask ChatGPT to help me put together a course, can’t I?”
So, I decided to ask Google: “I want to create an online course. Can AI help me with this, or should I take someone's course on this?”
Google’s AI answer:
“AI can absolutely help you create an online course, often reducing the time required from weeks to minutes. However, the best approach is often a hybrid one: using AI to handle the heavy lifting of drafting and structuring, while utilizing human expertise (or a course on the topic) to ensure quality and engagement.”
How diplomatic!
Here is the thing: there are many considerations that go into creating an online course, and many ways to do it.
When I built my first online course in 2016, I had experience putting together corporate workshops, but they were all in person and used PowerPoint presentations. I had never taken my expertise and turned it into an online learning experience. At the time, I was taking Susannah Conway’s Inside Story course, and that’s what inspired me to launch a course on how to build a Squarespace website because people were always asking me about web design. Since then, I've learned a lot about Learning Management Systems (LMS), how to translate my knowledge into a curriculum that delivers positive outcomes for my students, and how to market and sell my courses.
I sometimes wonder what I would do if I were launching my first course today, with the same beginner’s experience I had back then?
As a bit of a tech geek, I probably would try AI. But knowing what I know now about course creation and myself, I am pretty sure that I would have ended up with analysis paralysis and procrastination. There are too many options and considerations, I wouldn’t have known how to ask the right questions or how to recognize when AI was hallucinating, and my ADHD brain would have gotten overwhelmed and stuck.
Let’s have a look at what it actually takes to create a high-quality course that attracts the right people and sells—through the lens of someone who is highly sensitive, with limited energy reserves, and not interested in using hustle culture methods:
Someone’s not too impressed with Mr. Robot 😸
1. Roadmap
You need a roadmap that is realistic about your schedule and availability, honors your nervous system and energy capacity, and guides you gently to completion.
2. Tech Stack
You need to choose your software and hardware, from the LMS, email marketing platform, and video software, to your microphone and camera for recording your lessons.
3. Curriculum
You need a solid curriculum of modules and lessons that is structured to support successful student outcomes and transformation.
4. Course Format
Do you want to offer an evergreen course or use the launch model? How do you decide what type of content you will offer to create an engaging learning experience?
5. Marketing
How will you market your course before, during, and after its launch? How will you attract leads and convert them into students, without overwhelming you or your audience?
I teach all of this in my course. And AI has a place in some of it.
For instance, I built a comprehensive, platform-agnostic AI script to help you develop your curriculum. Here is what one of my students said about that:
“The AI tool in the course is PURE GOLD MAGIC :) That was worth the price of the course for me, because it got me at the tension that I was having in creating my course, and helped me develop an outline, evergreen modules, and a flexible resource area that I can update as needed. So thank you - this is working!” —Jessica Schüller
I was able to create this tool because I’ve been creating curricula for over a decade and knew exactly what this prompt needed to do. It required my human experience and knowledge to work as well as it does.
Because here is what AI can’t do:
Teach from its own lived experience.
Understand your nervous system.
Recognize and leverage the nuance of human learning.
AI is a tool, not a teacher.
If you want to create a course with AI’s help, give it a try for sure. Maybe start with a mini course and see where it takes you.
However, if you prefer to be guided through the whole process by an experienced human, then check out my Calm Course Creator course, I think you’ll really like it. 🧡
Bring out the course that is within you! Calm step-by-step guidance from an experienced course creator (10+ years) to help you build, launch, and sell your course.
