Where should I teach online?

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is about teaching online and which platform to use, specifically if they should teach on Skillshare. There is no easy answer. My own journey has taken me from creating courses for Skillshare, to teaching for OpenClassrooms online education platform, to launching my Navigate Paris Online experience on Teachable, and hosting my own live workshops on Zoom. There's no easy answer to this question, but I figured I'd walk you through what I do know.

Online  ≠ easy

The bottom line is that just because you create something amazing, success isn't guaranteed. Whether you create your own online school, or host a course on a marketplace, you're going to have to promote it and work to get the word out. It means you have to be comfortable selling your work.

People are inundated by information, have good intentions, but also get easily distracted. We've all been excited to do something before, but have told ourselves "I'll do it later," and later becomes days, weeks, months, years. This has nothing to do with the quality of work you produce, but everything to do with the world we live in. You’re fighting for the economy of attention.

One of the challenges that comes with the nature of evolving online course options is that people have shorter attention spans. There is a huge drop off rate when it comes to free MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses). Only a small fraction of students will ever complete a course. Even when you do pay and invest in a course you may have more incentive to take it, but also life can get in the way too.

This is all a long way of saying that just because something is online, doesn’t make it easier. In many ways, I think it’s even more work than teaching offline.

Teaching on an online marketplace

Let's rewind to my own online teaching journey. My first course on Map Making launched on Skillshare 7 years ago (when I first encountered Forte who has gone on to evolve his course and build his own online school!). Skillshare was still in its infancy at the time. My first course launched as a 2 week course, and oh my, is it low budget (but the ideas are all there). It was never intended to be online 7 years later, but it warms my heart that people are still enjoying it and making maps all these years later.

The irony of course is that it's the only course I've built with such an incredible, engaged, community. I only realized recently that I think it was the fact that it had an start and finished date which made it a success. I knew exactly what I was marketing, when it was happening, and people needed to act to sign up. There was an initial sense of urgency to take it and be apart of it. Then enthusiasm from students and word of mouth carried it forward from there.

Every course I created afterwards—InDesign Basics, Presentation Design, and Redesign Your Résumé—was evergreen meaning people could sign up at any time and take it whenever they want. This made promoting—the key to success—less urgent for me, and it was harder to create drive and interest early on. (Early sign ups always are a boost and provide a lot of momentum to carry yourself forward. They also tend to feed any algorithms)

The benefit of Skillshare is that anyone can discover your courses. Since I first launched my courses, the quality has gone way up in terms of video expectations (ie. most of them are professionally shot or at least use good cameras, whereas mine were all done with my computer camera). The more popular the course, the more people are going to find it. In short, just because you created your course, doesn't mean your work is done. (Warning: the ups and downs or reviews—for those 100 glowing reviews, it’s that one negative one that sticks with you—can throw off your confidence. Keep going!).

The biggest perk of a platform like Skillshare is once the work is done, it becomes passive income where you earn money when you sleep. You don't have to do anything, you just receive monthly payouts to your account. It's pretty cool to still receive a payout each month 7 years later (think of it like book royalties; I also earn money when people sign up through my referral link). That being said, I've seen the business model change multiple times since I first launched my courses.

I used to make ~$15 per person signed who signed up (students got lifetime access to that course), and now it's more like $0.01 per minute watched (students now have full access to the entire library of Skillshare classes when they sign up). There are WAY more people on the platform now, but also a lot more competition when it comes to course offerings.

For years I was lucky and had a monopoly on InDesign courses. It wasn't until a year or two ago I realized someone else entered that space. Every year my earnings from the platform go down, but I also have done ZERO work to promote my courses (with the exception of my CreativeMornings 'Make a Map!' FieldTrips which were inspired by my map making course.)

Skillshare is only one online marketplace. Udemy and Domestika are others. Overall there’s discoverability through marketplaces. The means that people may be searching for a specific subject and may discover your courses without previously knowing your work. That can be one of the biggest perks. Marketplace platforms are a good way for someone to discover your work. Once they know about the work you do, they may follow you to wherever you host offerings in the future.

Many marketplaces and platforms have guidelines and rules that discourage, or don’t allow, the same course to be posted on multiple platforms. Everyone wants to have unique content. (That’s not to say you can’t remix and rework content in different ways.)

Teaching for an existing online school

OpenClassrooms was a different model for me. I was hired/commissioned to develop curriculum and 12 UX courses. I was paid well up front, but receive no ongoing payments, nor do I have control over changes to my courses or path I created.

While working for them the fun thing was I got to collaborate with instructional designers whose job was to ensure pedagogy is on point, as well as a video team. I even received in studio media training and learned how to read from a teleprompter (it's all an art!). Being on video can take some practice, but it was great to have a crew who knew how to get things right, from lighting to sound.

It was also super fun to get to collaborate with the video team in post production. I got to work with them to create fun animations that went on screen, which is something I wouldn't have the patience to do myself, nor budget to hire someone to do at this point.

When working for a company/platform they have their own format and way of doing things. Having these constraints can be helpful most of the time, but also frustrating when you don't have full creative freedom.

Each of my courses was broken down into 12-15 smaller chapters (mini lessons) which I divided into 2-3 parts (sections). I not only had to write chapter text, but I also had to distill all the information into scripts that would become 3-4 min videos (it turns out writing short scripts can be more challenging than longer ones—you have to get right to the point).

Having to write about the same information in two different ways was mentally exhausting. While there was overlap, the text and script were not the exact same thing. It was an excellent exercise when it came to ensuring I knew all the material well enough in order to teach it—succinctly.

The perk of working with a well established organization in the education field is that it can open other doors and partnerships. Of course you can be discovered on any platform, but it was thanks to OpenClassrooms that my course Communicate Your Ideas Through Design & Storytelling got picked up and adapted by Google Digital Garage.

It sounds strange to say, but one of the downside to teaching any class online is you don’t always get feedback or affirmation from those who have taken the class. If they liked it they’re more likely to tell a friend than the teacher. I will say that a lot of OpenClassrooms students find me on LinkedIn and send me thank you notes which is always appreciated.

I've never taught one myself, but CreativeLive is another model which records live courses in their studio. It's free for people watching live [at home]. There's a discount if the course is purchased during the live period (courses are typically spread over a few days), and then the course can be purchased at any time at a full rate. (As an aside, they host sales very regularly, so watch for deals!) As far as I know it's CreativeLive who recruits the teacher, but as an instructor don't be afraid to pitch your ideas to other organizations.

Creating your own online school

Technology has evolved greatly since I started teaching online. Now there are a handful of platforms that make it easy for you to create, market, and sell your own online courses. Teachable, Podia, Teachery, and Kajabi are a few. They all have similar approaches but offer different features, and at different costs. I ended up using Teachable to launch Navigate Paris Online, the online version of my tours.

The platforms are nice because they provide an easy way to upload video, write text, sales pages, and collect money for your courses. You may need a developer to have more creative control, but if your goal is to create quality online courses, focus on the content instead of the platform.

It's super easy to fall down the rabbit hole of which platform to use and weigh the pros and cons. I'll say from my experience no platform is perfect, and you're likely not going to discover the "holes" or limitations of the platform until you get in it and build it out yourself. (I myself am the master at figuring out how platforms are not designed to be used!). At some point you have to pick one and go for it.

The nice thing about most of these platforms is once you pay for the platform—typically monthly or yearly fee—you can create unlimited courses. Sounds great until you realize how much time, effort, and energy it takes to create courses. ;) I highly recommend taking it one course/step at time, and treat each one like a learning experience. There is always going to be an evolution when teaching, particularly online.

The other thing to keep in mind is that not all courses need to be professionally shot and produced. Sometimes a low budget video you shoot on your phone, or a recording of a course you teach live can be just as effective—if not more so—than a course that's highly produced. Q&A can be just as valuable as the actual teaching lessons.

I will warn you not to underestimate the time it takes to learn a new platform. I ended up starting with Teachable, but I'm still learning if it's the best option for me before I build out my school with additional courses. It can be overwhelming to develop a course and figuring out how to navigate the platform at the same time. And once you create a course, you also have to figure out how to sell it. (Pro tip: an understanding of sales pages is really important if you’re looking at this option.)

So HOW DO I CHOOSE?

If you haven't read between the lines yet, planning an online course is A LOT OF WORK. Even when you know what you're talking about! Teaching online is a fantastic exercise in paring down information and ensuring that you stick to what is essential. My natural desire as an educator is always to share as much knowledge with my students, but that risks overwhelming them. The real challenge as an educator—particularly online—is to really hone in and keep the focus tight. It will help keep their attention too.

I've invested in taking a lot of online courses over the years by a range of different teachers to build various skills and learn different things. That has been immensely helpful for me to figure out what I want to offer and how I may want to frame it. It also gives you insight into the platforms. You get to see how people can use the same platform in different ways. However, it can be tempting to tell yourself, “Once I take this course I’ll know what I’m doing and ready to start.”

WARNING: Don’t get sucked into the trap of feeling like you have to keep paying for more classes and trainings in order to learn everything you think you need to know before getting started. Technology is changing fast. At some point you just have to START and learn on the go. Thinking about teaching a class online is very different from actually doing it. The best results come from actually doing it.

Chances are if you’re thinking about teaching a course online, you’ve already put a ton of thought into it. Consider the cheapest, easiest way to test out your ideas before diving in full steam ahead. Maybe you don’t need a platform at all.

When I interviewed productivity expert Tiago Forte for my 99U piece on building a career from different income streams he pointed out that the feedback cycle for online courses is long and slow. (There's also a great episode with him on the Everything is Teachable podcast.) You may put in a ton of hours, and in many cases, invest a lot of money, only to discover something isn't working. Forte is a big proponent of live teaching as a way to get instant feedback. From there you can iterate and best decide what the best direction is to take a course.

Sometimes this may be through a free webinar, other times it may be creating a Skillshare course as a way to see if you even enjoy teaching online, before running to open your online school and everything that goes along with it.

There is definitely no perfect platform or way of doing it. Hopefully this post gave you a few more ideas of things you may not have considered.

You can read more about online workshops in my 99U article, A Primer for Creative Online Workshops.

P.S. I also work with coaching clients to help them figure out what's the best way to deliver their own offerings.