[Zanardi]

Hello people!

Long story short, I am 33 years old, from Ploiesti, Romania. I work as a lecturer at the local University and loving every second of it. I teach programming (beginner's level), numerical methods and optimization techniques. I first learn computer programming when I was 15, in the first year of high school, and since then I studied by myself many other things regarding this topic. But this is for another time.

This summer I came with the idea to extend what I am teaching to other people who are interested. Because numerical methods and optimization techniques are way too advanced, I decided to give it a go with the programming course. My first attempt was at a local place, called Anticaffe. At that time, I had set my expectations very low, because I knew this was an experiment. For me, if a student appeared, then it was a win. I structured the course on 10 chapters, one chapter weekly and began my job. Despite the publicity the place's boss made, only three students showed up, one of them quitting after only to weeks. I wasn't disappointed (mainly because I set myself very low expectations), but it was obvious that there is no point in continuing after I ended the course.

A month ago, I remembered the Udemy site and decided to browse it a little. Instantly, I thought to replicate the Anticaffe experiment here, on Udemy.

I am still browsing the site and the requirements for the instructors. I found only one course that is similar to what I want to teach, which tells me that the competition is non-existent for this course. Meanwhile, I am building a list of the topics that I will address in my future course.

My plan, so far, is very simple:

1. Create the course
2. Market the course
3. Maintenance
4. Repeat
   

I decided to open this thread mostly for you. If I were to do it only for me, I'd use Evernote. But I know that I am not perfect and every hint, trick, praise, criticism, question and/or rotten tomato are welcomed.

Thank you in advance.

[redbeard]

(12-19-2016 10:29 AM)Zanardi Wrote:  

My plan, so far, is very simple:

1. Create the course
   
2. Market the course
3. Maintenance
4. Repeat
   

How do you plan to market the course?

[Zanardi]

Good question.

Right now, the main source is word of mouth, but there is a very low ceiling using this method. I have to think about something to reach out other people. I hope Udemy staff can help me with this.

Note to self: get a Camtasia license. I can torrent it, but I don't want legal problems down the road.

[Mr Johnny Montoya]

Sorry to hijack the thread, I just want to mention that I have a course and it's been suggested to me that I should put it on udemy. The problem is, my course is PDF and videos (I don't show my face and there's no voiceover), and I don't think there's a way to make PDFs available on udemy. Also I think people would be disappointed to see videos with no talking. Or have I got it all wrong? My course is on clickbank but I've had nobody interested in being an affiliate, hence why I might consider udemy but only if it's realistic to do so.

[FireStarter]

^ I'd be disappointed if I paid for a course and the creator didn't bother putting a voiceover on the videos. YouTube seems to have a lot of instructional videos like that, often the info is good but then they put irritating techno music over the top. Even if it was music I like it does nothing to increase the value of the video.

Solution: Record your voice and put it in the videos.

As for showing your face, that's not something that I care about, but other people might like seeing the person teaching them.

[Zanardi]

(12-20-2016 07:44 AM)FireStarter Wrote:  

^ I'd be disappointed if I paid for a course and the creator didn't bother putting a voiceover on the videos.

[...]

Solution: Record your voice and put it in the videos.

I agree with the point above. Plus, the voiceover has the huge advantage in being able to explain and detail the concepts shown in the pdf.

To add, you don't need to use the pdf files per se. It's much better, I think, to make Powerpoint presentations containing exactly what the pdf files have. Presentations + voice over + screen recording software = video.

I won't show my face, if this helps you decide.

I solved the software problem: I found two free alternatives: CamStudio instead of Camtasia and Free Office 2016 instead of Microsoft Office. I downloaded them and they work well. Right now, I am not sure if the earnings from my courses will be invested in a Camtasia license.

I sketched the content of my videos. The first version of my sketches is this:

1. Algorithms
   
   1. Basic notions
   2. Fundamental structures
   3. Representation methods
      
2. Logical schemes
   
   1. Basic notions
   2. (to be completed)
      
3. Variables
4. Secvential structures: usage and implementation
5. Selection structures: usage and implementation
6. Decision structures: usage and implementation
7. Iterative structures (loops): usage and implementation
   
   1. Initial test loop: usage and implementation
   2. Final test loop: usage and implementation
   3. Counter loop: usage and implementation
      
8. Subalgorithms
9. Solved and commented examples
10. Bonuses
    
    1. Basic elements of Pascal language
    2. Basic elements of C++ language
       

The text that will reach the videos will be written in EndNote. So far so good.

[Zanardi]

Happy New Year!

Today I created my Udemy account. Will spend some time working on my profile, then to tinker around for more info on how to create my course. I expect next week to begin documenting for and writing the text for the first video.

[Zanardi]

Change log, January 3rd, 2017:

1. I began creating the presentation texts for the future course. The first version of the presentation text from the course's landing page is this:

Quote:

Course Description

Programming for Beginners is a course that is designed to teach the basics of computer programming, offering a solid foundation that can be used to learn almost any programming language. In fact, the bonuses section will teach you the basics of two of the most utilized programming languages, Pascal and C++, to help the students apply what they had learned and create their own programs.


This course is for everybody that does not know programming and wants to study it, no matter the age, gender and other traits. Although programming is not easy, the basics can be learned by everybody.


The course is logically structured, beginning with the simplest concepts and notions and ending with the most advanced ones.

What are the requirements?

• Basic knowledge of how to use a PC
  

What am I going to get from this course?

• To understand the basic notions regarding algorithms
• To correctly understand and use the basic structures of the algorithms
• To understand what are subalgorithms, when and how are they used
• To correctly use logical schemes to represent algorithms
  

Who is the target audience?

• This course is for everybody that does not know programming and wants to learn the basics
  

What are your opinions so far on this presentation?

2. I had made some additions to the curriculum. The new curriculum is this:

1. Introduction
   
   1. Introduction
      
2. Algorithms
   
   1. Basic Notions about Algorithms
   2. Fundamental Structures of Algorithms
   3. Representation Methods of Algorithms
      
3. Logical schemes
   
   1. Basic Notions about Logical Schemes
   2. Component Parts of a Logical Scheme
   3. How to Build a Logical Scheme
      
4. Variables
   
   1. Basic Notions about Variables
   2. Data Types
      
5. The Sequential Structure
   
   1. The Sequential Structure. Implementation
      
6. The Selection Structure
   
   1. The Selection Structure. Implementation
      
7. The Decision Structure
   
   1. The Decision Structure. Implementation
      
8. Iteration. The Iterative Structure
   
   1. Basic Notions about Iterative Structures
   2. The Iterative Structure Using the Initial Test. Implementation
   3. The Iterative Structure Using the Final Test. Implementation
   4. The Iterative Structure Using the Counter. Implementation
      
9. Subalgorithms
   
   1. Basic Notions about Subalgorithms
   2. Types of Subalgorithms. Commonalities and Differences
   3. The Correct Usage of Subalgorithms
      
10. Solved and Commented Examples
    
    1. Solved and Commented Examples
       
11. Bonuses
    
    1. Basic Elements of Pascal
    2. Basic Elements of C++
    3. What's Next?
       

3. I had set the course price to 50 euros.

4. I had created the welcome and congratulations message for the course.

The welcome message is this:

Quote:

Welcome and thank you for registering to the Programming for Beginners course. I put everything I know here about this topic and I strongly hope that this course will be of real value to you.

The course begins with the easy notions then it continues to the more advanced ones. Every lecture is gradually more difficult and it builds on the notions presented in the previous lectures. This is why my suggestion is to take your time with the course, because it is not going anywhere. Watch the videos as many times as you consider necessary, study the examples and try them out for yourself. Begin with the first lecture and don't skip ahead.

If there is something that you don't understand, feel free to ask. I shall answer personally to every question that you ask and I shall make sure that everything becomes clear to you.

Thank you once again and good luck!

The congratulations message is this:

Quote:

Congratulations on graduating the Programming for Beginners course. I hope this course will be useful to you for the future.

I'd like feedback from you. I'd like to know what was your opinion on it, what did you like, what didn't you like, what is it that you'd like to see appear here, etc.

Thank you!

Do you think these texts can be improved? If so, how?

[AntiTrace]

The target market is students with no previous programming experience correct?

If so, why do you jump straight into algorithms. Why don't you cover the basics first such as primitive/complex data types, conditionals, flow control, data structures, etc?

Or maybe you do but it just isn't obvious based off your lecture titles.

Couple tips since I have done these before:

-record yourself now, before you do all any more planing. You will be surprised at how difficult it is recording yourself lecturing and programming. You will learn a lot about how your voice sounds, what your crutch words are (uhh, umm, okay), and how long each topic should take. Take the lessons you learn during the first "rough draft" of the series and apply them to your next iteration through the lectures which will be the publishable version.

-keep your videos to 7-10 minutes long. Long is bad, break longer topics up into smaller segments that feed into each other

- Use a text editor/ide that is available across all platforms. I'm normally just a basic VIM guy, but when I did tutorials I used notepad++ before realizing it isn't available on Mac. Sublime is good. Atom is good. I think eclipse is available on Linux/Mac/windows as well.

-minimize command line use. Like I said earlier I use VIM and the command line for 99% of my personal programming. Doing videos, I try to make everything as graphical as possible. This is because most people are scared of the command line and it just adds more complexity to the learning environment. Also some commands are different on Mac/Linux/Windows and your going to lose some of your newbie customers when they in into an error and don't know how to fix it.

-MAKE MISTAKES PURPOSEFULLY. Seriously. Debugging is a huge part of programming. Make a mistake, and show your thought process of tracking it down and correcting it. Show them how to read error messages in whatever language your using. You'd be surprised how many times I've had people come to me about debugging and not even know what line the error was on or the type of exceptions that was thrown.

-finally break each new concept into two parts, explanation and demonstration. For example if I were teaching the concept of loops I would first have a video or two covering the different types of loops, the syntax of each one, the control flow of each one, and the exit conditions of each. It would be a Slide show that I would talk over or I would draw it using a USB drawing tablet while explaining it. Then I would demonstrate it by doing the standard programming videos.

If you can make it work, I also highly recommend demonstrating iterative development practices if your dealing with newbies as well. Again I can tell you how many times I've had people come to me that had written 100 lines of code before running it once. Then they have all sorts of errors and can't figure anything out. They look at me like I finger blasted their cat when I tell them to delete everything, start over, and test every few lines.

[Zanardi]

(01-03-2017 09:18 AM)AntiTrace Wrote:  

The target market is students with no previous programming experience correct?

If so, why do you jump straight into algorithms. Why don't you cover the basics first such as primitive/complex data types, conditionals, flow control, data structures, etc?

Or maybe you do but it just isn't obvious based off your lecture titles.

Very good question. Let me explain.

Anybody that wants to learn programming and, obviously, doesn't have any programming experience is my target group. This is correct.

I think that it's not obvious from the lecture details that I will cover the basics. Maybe I am too used to my academic world and the academic style of presenting, maybe Romanian and English have different words for the same concept, maybe a bit of both.

Conditionals are treated in sections 6 and 7. The Selection Structure is the equivalent of switch (or case, in Pascal) and the Decision Structure is the old if instruction.

Flow control is treated in sections 5 through 9.

I cannot discuss data types and structures in this form of the course, because, to represent algorithms, I use logical schemes (I don't know if there is a special term in English, but I refer to the old drawings that begin and end with an oval that have START/STOP, many arrows... you get the idea). I discuss Data Types (4.2) as a prequel to the Bonuses section, in which I discuss the programming languages.

I won't make any more unplanned changes to the curriculum and I will soon begin recording the videos. My original plan is to write down everything that I want to say in Evernote, create my presentations using Presentations 2016 (a free alternative to Power Point) then to record the video while I read and scroll the slides. I'll keep the videos about 10 minutes in length.

Your tips, however, gave me another ideea... Thanks.

[Zanardi]

I recorded and set the mandatory test video to the Udemy staff for review. It was a basic video, containing slides and voice.

As AntiTrace said, it is not as easy as it sounds. Because I had never did this before, first I had to snoop around in my laptop's settings to increase the microphone's volume. Then, after the first rehearsal, I was terrified of how stifled my voice was. I managed to un-stifle it a few rehearsals later, point in which some voice inflections crept in and I began to sound more like a human being and not like Robocop.

But there was more: although everything I had to say was on paper, I had to read it perfectly. No fumbles, no "uhhm" or "ahhh". Meanwhile, I also had to switch slides when the timing was right.

I managed to pull something decent after two hours of shooting and rehearsing, from the sixth try. I say "decent" because when I speak, I hear a weak background noise. This noise stops when I shut up. I didn't find the cause for this, but I believe it's because the microphone catches a bit of electromagnetic waves from the laptop's speakers (I use a simple headphone-with-microphone set. Nothing fancy)

Now, I am waiting for their review. I expect their answer either Monday or Tuesday. The video was 5 minutes and 42 seconds long, which I think it's OK for an introductory video.

Until the official review comes in, I asked feedback for the same video on the Udemy group on Facebook. Only one guy answered, so far and his opinion was better than I expected.

Until then, break from course.

[AntiTrace]

Good stuff.

Audio is a huge factor. HUGE. You definitely should invest in a quality usb microphone. I have a Blue Snowball Microphone or whatever its called. $60 or so and it works great, never have any fuzzy background noise. Seems to be great quality for the price.

I wouldn't try too hard to be too perfect and on script for each video. Stumbling your words a bit and making mistakes is human, and people like to feel that human connection even when they are doing online videos. Obviously be as professional as possible, but don't sweat the small errors. This was one of my biggest lessons learned. The first course I did was about 20 videos long. I spent....maybe 4-6 hours....on the first 7 minute long video because anytime I made the slightest mistake I would start over. Eventually I got sick of that and just shot the video as-is then I would go back and watch it looking for big glaring issues. After switching to that strategy, I produced all 20 videos in one day.

The great thing about shooting online courses is that once you put the time in the make the course, adding it to different distribution channels is quick. You should consider starting on online education business and use Udemy as one of your sales funnels. Consider having your own personal/business subscription website where all your content is available. Add videos to Udemy/Tuts/Etc and direct students taking those to your business site. You can leverage the large audience and the powerful marketing tools of the distribution channels (Udemy/Tuts) to drive new users to your website where you keep 100% of each subscription/sale.

edit - you can also have a shoutbox on the site or a forum where students can go and ask questions. Think more along the line of building a community as opposed to building a single course. Being a lecturer at the local university is a huge advantage when it comes to getting some activity on your forum. Shoot a video series for the classes you teach and instruct all your students to post their questions on your forum.

[Zanardi]

The feedback from the test video came. The audio quality needs improvement, more precisely to eliminate the weak background noise that I was afraid of. Lucky for me, they already had an article which discussed this issue and I fixed this in about 30 minutes.

About the video, they said that: "The video quality of your test video is really great. It's now good to go. We suggest that you keep using the same settings for your next test videos and courses."

The delivery was acceptable in all the rated categories: tone, mistakes, volume and pace.

If I understood well, all I need to improve is the audio, so as the test video passes.

I had resubmitted a new test video, without the background noise. Another two days of waiting and I'll continue with the next steps: improving the delivery.

(01-07-2017 08:05 AM)AntiTrace Wrote:  

The great thing about shooting online courses is that once you put the time in the make the course, adding it to different distribution channels is quick. You should consider starting on online education business and use Udemy as one of your sales funnels. Consider having your own personal/business subscription website where all your content is available. Add videos to Udemy/Tuts/Etc and direct students taking those to your business site. You can leverage the large audience and the powerful marketing tools of the distribution channels (Udemy/Tuts) to drive new users to your website where you keep 100% of each subscription/sale.

This is one of the best advice I got on this topic, so far and I am strongly thinking about it. My main weak point is marketing/ advertising/ making my course known, but I shall fix it in the future. I ain't going anywhere.

[testos111]

I don't know how effective (and bothered) Udemy is in promoting their courses.

But given the plethora of courses out there, both free and paid, there is no doubt you'll have to the majority of the promotion yourself. My advice to you would be the following:

1. First create a lead magnet like a free PDF that teaches some basics and advertise that using Facebook ads to collect e-mails.

2. Set up your autoresponder in such a way that once someone gives their e-mail, they are redirected to page where you are advertising your Udemy course.

3. Some people may purchase. Some may not. But you have their e-mails now.

4. Start following up with some tips related to your course and occasionally keep reminding them of your course.

Unlike most internet marketers, make sure your website and landing pages look really professional.

And Facebook ads too have a learning curve but ignore most of the types of ads they show. Just focus on the CPC model and the type of ad that takes the user from Facebook to your landing page.

Good luck!

[Zanardi]

(01-13-2017 03:59 AM)testos111 Wrote:  

I don't know how effective (and bothered) Udemy is in promoting their courses.

Neither do I, but I shall find out in time. Thank you for your tips.

Update January 21st:

I shot and uploaded the two videos. I have 22 more to go. I need to work faster and harder, because I don't want to finish all the videos in June or July. The part that it takes the longest is writing, editing and correcting the scenario. I am looking into it very closely, because this is perhaps the most important part of a video. I want to be short, to the point and, especially, to provide value. I don't want to leave anything out.

On the good side, shooting videos becomes easier and easier.

The second video is 14 minutes and 10 seconds long.

[John Michael Kane]

I'm a Udemy student. One bit of advice: Try to make each lesson as short as possible, that way you dial in subject matter that is specific to a particular area, in case it is something a student wants to go back and review. The more specific a particular chapter is, the easier it is to bone up on a subject matter that is difficult. Cramming a lot into longer chapters makes it harder for students to go back and study up.

I'm in the process of creating my own Udemy course on financial matters and will release it later this year.

[Resolute]

If you have a thick accent and/or an unpleasant sounding voice (record yourself and listen to it, if you're honest with yourself, you'll know one way or another) hire someone to do a voiceover for you. There are plenty of people with great talent on Odesk or Elance that will do it for fairly cheap. You have to remember to view this an an INVESTMENT because that's what it is. Don't half-ass it, and don't be cheap. Once you create the course, you have a passive income ad infinitum, even if Udemy doesn't work you can create your own sales/landing page and sell it as a course on your own website.

[John Michael Kane]

If you need someone to help do voiceovers or get great graphics for your course, I highly recommend fiverr.com. Lots of talented people on there for a reasonable price.

[roid]

Just my observation... Udemy really cheapens the courses...selling everything at discounted rate like 22 bucks for courses that I think worth 200 bucks at least. While it is good for the consumers, eventually quality instructors will move away from this platform and start selling elsewhere or even their own website.

[John Michael Kane]

It depends. If the volume makes up for the discounted price, then you could make it up the difference. Udemy has an already accessible user base. A super premium product wouldn't be on udemy in the first place.

[Zanardi]

(01-29-2017 03:41 AM)John Michael Kane Wrote:  

I'm a Udemy student. One bit of advice: Try to make each lesson as short as possible, that way you dial in subject matter that is specific to a particular area, in case it is something a student wants to go back and review. The more specific a particular chapter is, the easier it is to bone up on a subject matter that is difficult. Cramming a lot into longer chapters makes it harder for students to go back and study up.

I'm in the process of creating my own Udemy course on financial matters and will release it later this year.

The longest video I have so far is a bit under fifteen minutes long. My only dilemma is to find an optimum between length and offered value. I am thinking to add, as a resource, the scripts I read for each video, so if the student wants to look for something, he doesn't have to browse through the video to find what he's looking for. It's much easier with text. I already did that with the Powerpoint presentations (converted into ppsx files, so they won't get modified)

(01-29-2017 04:28 AM)John Michael Kane Wrote:  

If you need someone to help do voiceovers or get great graphics for your course, I highly recommend fiverr.com. Lots of talented people on there for a reasonable price.

Thank you for the tip. Right now, I have no clue if I need a voiceover or not so I'll record the videos as there are and see later what happens.

Update February 9th:

I am still working on my videos. I was a bit busy with some school work, but I am keeping my course. I have more free time until March 6th. The regular season of the 2nd semester will begin and I will be very busy with classes.

[AntiTrace]

(02-09-2017 08:19 AM)Zanardi Wrote:  

The longest video I have so far is a bit under fifteen minutes long. My only dilemma is to find an optimum between length and offered value. I am thinking to add, as a resource, the scripts I read for each video, so if the student wants to look for something, he doesn't have to browse through the video to find what he's looking for. It's much easier with text. I already did that with the Powerpoint presentations (converted into ppsx files, so they won't get modified)

Additional resources set yourself apart from the majority of instructors. Anytime can record themselves programming but not everyone has the teaching experience to construct study aids/reference materials/cheat sheets/etc. You have that experience, so leverage it.

Create a github repo for each video course. Push to git after EVERY video (well, everyone you actually modify code). In the readme.md for git, add links for to the individual commits for each video.

Something like this:

Readme.md Wrote:

Welcome to Zanardi's awesome course. See the links below for the code for each lecture in the series. Remember to ask questions on Udemy or over at http://www.zanardiscoolwebpage.com/forum/course1.

1. Lecture 1 (hyperlink to the commit you pushed at the end of lec 1)
2. Lecture 1 (hyperlink to the commit you pushed at the end of lec 2)
3. Lecture 1 (hyperlink to the commit you pushed at the end of lec 3)

This is huge. Brand new programming students (your market for this course) get lost all the time! It's amazing how many issues that pop out they can't figure out. Maybe the left a comma out somewhere, or forget to close a string literal, and then they get this weird error that they can't resolve. They get frustrated and give up. Giving them the ability to download your entire codebase at any point is a great selling point.

It also separates your content (code/resources) from the delivery method (udemy). This allows you to publish the same video series on multiple platforms (udemy/tuts/your own site) without having to go through the hassle of managing resources and each site. It also builds your github reputation.

That's also why I stress teaching debugging strategies as soon as possible. You can't possibly predict every syntax error a student will make. You need to give them debug skills as soon as possible. Even if it's something as simple as "hey buddy, you got an error, copy and paste the error into google and click the first stack overflow link that pops up".

[Zanardi]

Update February 14th:

So far, I shot 9 videos from the total of 23. Because it's exam time for the students, I have more time to write my scripts, make my presentations and shoot a new video. In this period I am going through a flow state when I am doing this, so everything goes smoothly. I think that after I'll finish all the 23 videos, 95% of the work needed to create this course will be done. It's a lot of work. Yesterday I worked 12 hours and today only 10, the only breaks were to eat and to go do some shopping across the street.

What's interesting is that while I am working on this course, ideas of other 6-7 courses came to my mind. I noted them quickly on Evernote, so I don't forget them.

[John Michael Kane]

Evernote is fantastic. I have a widescreen 4K display, split with Evernote on one side, and my content creation tools on the right. Getting a big monitor is fantastic for content creation because it really speeds up the process. Highly recommend looking into it if you have the budget.

[Zanardi]

You're right, it's fantastic. I use it since 2014, but only at the end of the last year I figured out how great it is.

Right now, my only content creation lab consists in:

1. A laptop. I bought it in 2011 and it's very well kept and works perfectly;
2. Headset with mike.
3. Evernote. For writing my scripts;
4. The Free Office 2016 suite;
5. CamStudio
6. VitualDub
7. Audacity
   

Because I don't want future legal problems, I decided to use free programs. I'd use Microsoft Office and Camtasia, but I want to use licensed products, not pirated ones. If this goes well, the earned money will be reinvested in software licenses.