Udemy

MarkLassoff · ‎05-04-2022

@ChrystieV Save your money. Behr Sparking Apple Flat makes a perfect green screen. Highly recommended. https://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-PREMIUM-PLUS-1-gal-S-G-430-Sparkling-Apple-Flat-Low-Odor-Interior-Paint-Primer-130001/204869334

MarkLassoff · ‎05-04-2022

MarkLassoff · ‎05-03-2022

Hi Carole-- Think of it this way. If you're Udemy and you want to put people in the right course with the right instructor- would you choose the course with lots of engagement or the one with less engagement. That's the keyword-- engagement. If your course has high engagement and people get what you promised out of the experience that is better on many, many levels than having unenthusiastic enrollments.

MarkLassoff · ‎05-02-2022

Thanks, @Bella ! This was way too much fun! If anyone has questions-- please reply here and be sure to tag me. I'll be happy to answer as many questions as best I can!

MarkLassoff · ‎11-03-2021

@EWTIC_Mentor Sounds like you know what to do then-- Be careful-- You can't increase profitability by selling your Udemy audience something. Udemy expects that the course fee should cover everything... But if your goal is to practice in the "real world," you can simply include those resources in your course. Just make sure you're not collecting email addresses or using them to market and you're good. Keep in mind it's easier to engage on Udemy than off!

MarkLassoff · ‎11-03-2021

@Denise.W. Great question! Do you have a mobile phone? It's tempting to buy one of those expensive $1,000+ cameras. You may have even made the plunge. But, here's the thing... Those cameras are complex and you need to understand how they work to use them well. If you want to just capture some quick video for your online course, you may be better off using your mobile device. Modern mobile devices have cameras and quality that rivals that of the best video cameras-- And since you likely already have a mobile device it's free to use for your online courses. A couple of tips for using your mobile device to record video for your online courses: 1) Always hold your camera in landscape mode-- like the shape of your television. Instagram TV is dead and all #onlinelearning video uses the landscape mode. 2) Shoot at 1x magnification-- Never magnify the image on your mobile device. Magnification comes at a cost: Distortion 3) Compose your images using the "Rule of Thirds". Your subject should be approximately 1/3 of the way from the left or right and top or bottom. This will make your image more interesting than centering your subject. 4) Use a rig or tripod. Your hands just aren't that steady. Using a rig or tripod (or both) will give you the steadiest image and avoid making your viewers seasick. 5) Shoot at 4K if you can. Output at HD (1920 x 1080). This will allow you to use only a portion of the image shot and simulate a 2 or 3 camera shoot.

MarkLassoff · ‎11-03-2021

Hi @serchagoyavilla, Can I give you three? 1) Go Narrow, not broad-- Udemy is crowded, but, it's not impossible to break in. You break in more easily by creating a course that has a narrow topic. For example, there are hundreds of Excel courses on Udemy. But if you look at course ideas that might have a narrower appeal-- say Pivot Tables for Finance in Excel-- there's less competition. Choose your topic carefully, and unless you can do a lot of marketing, keep your topic narrow. 2) Be unique! There are hundreds of people narrating screencasts on Udemy! BO-RING! Instead of just being another instructor narrating a screencast, find a unique take, production technique-- something DIFFERENT and do that when you author your course. 3) Learn production and CARE. There are many courses with low production value-- the instructor's bed behind them in the video frame, less than good audio. Production is a learned skill and not a talent. Take the time to do things right. Your audience will appreciate it. Good luck-- What topic are you thinking of creating your course on?

MarkLassoff · ‎11-03-2021

Hi @EWTIC_Mentor -- I would start with this question: What is your goal for organizing outside-of-Udemy activities for students? This may be heresy, but, my goal is to maximize profitability-- not to interact with students more than I have to. It's not that I don't care, or, don't like my students. However, we deliver a complete do-it-yourself course. I answer questions, but, beyond that, I don't want to spend time interacting, because that is time that takes away from producing my next course and running my business. So, what is your goal?

MarkLassoff · ‎10-30-2021

A course isn't a research paper. If you are quoting someone else's idea, simply credit them verbally and/or in your graphic. "According to Professor Mary Smith of the University of Texas... " seems to work. However, be VERY careful about appropriate someone elses' IP. Even if you give them credit that doesn't relieve you from your duties to follow copyright laws. You can cite someone else's work, but you can't copy it.

MarkLassoff · ‎10-01-2019

Free courses have not been a great way to start. Free courses attract "free" people who want to collect classes, but rarely engage, and rarely purchase. I think email is still useful and there are dozens of posts about marketing a new course if you search the forums, teach.udemy.com , and other online resources. With organic traffic and no marketing or promotions, you can expect to earn close to zero. Courses that take off are relevant ones, high quality, and actively marketed by the instructor.

MarkLassoff · ‎07-31-2019

@ScottDuffy You're funny. Even for a Canadian.

MarkLassoff · ‎07-31-2019

I should point out that I hate everything (ask around), so getting positive reactions from me is rare!

MarkLassoff · ‎07-31-2019

I thought overall this was quite good-- No doubts about the editing or design. Things that could be improved: - I am a big believer in the 4-T's of training: Tell 'em what you're going to tell'em. Tell 'em. Tell 'em what you told 'em Test 'em You almost follow this format but, I think you could be more deliberate in framing at the beginning and reframing your points at the end. You're still better at this than a lot of what I see on Udemy. - The joke about the sponsor doesn't work for me. I'm hilarious. Trust me. 🙂 - Challenge: Powerpoint is lame. Even though your branding and graphics are much better than most, I'd challenge you to avoid the Powerpoint defaults for outlining your points. In summary, you have nothing to worry about. There are many top instructors whose content isn't nearly this good.

MarkLassoff · ‎06-11-2019

I think that’s a fair criticism... I am constantly reminding myself to slow down. Any ideas how to remember that when teaching?

MarkLassoff · ‎06-10-2019

I'll get us started. Here's a lesson from my newest course:

MarkLassoff · ‎05-31-2019

@AliciaPaz It was not a Udemy specific group.

MarkLassoff · ‎04-25-2019

Hi Heinn. I noticed you posted this in two different sections of the Studio U forum. To keep the forum clean, may I suggest you don't duplicate posts?

MarkLassoff · ‎04-24-2019

Honored to be able to bring my unique perspective! Thanks @JocelynH

MarkLassoff · ‎04-24-2019

Sorry, it's really best to produce a full course. First, students expectations are that they're getting a full course now. Why buy yours when they get a complete course from another author? They honestly don't care how much time you have to work, or what restrictions you have and students certainly don't want to hear you'll abandon the project if it's not working for you financially. If you want to drip content there are other platforms, but they won't bring your audience to you.

MarkLassoff · ‎04-19-2019

Hi Everyone: We find outlining the course before starting production to be a critical process. A good outline makes the entire production process easier. When we started we did a very simple high-level outline, but, found over time that adding more detail avoided many errors and production problems later. I wanted to share the form that we use at Framework Television-- a company that has produced over 200 courses. Here it is... Note that the first tab on the form is a high-level summary, and the second details each and every chapter. The reason we detail each chapter is to provide a road-map for our students through each video which appears in graphical form like this: The topics on the right-hand side of the screen come directly from the detail part of the outline on the second tab. But it all starts with a strong detailed outline. I hope you find our form useful. Feel free to make a copy and modify it so that it works for you. Note that there are some relationships set up in the spreadsheet that automatically make copies of content from the first tab into the chapter details on the second tab. If you find this useful, would you please let me know? If time permits and this proves useful, I'll write a longer post about our course creation process later this month.

MarkLassoff · ‎04-16-2019

I think the mistake here is assuming Udemy sees themselves as a software company. They don't. Software is merely a means by which they deliver the democratization of education. Software will be at the heart of 80-90% of companies before long. That doesn't mean they abandon their primary mission in favor of engineers' preferred software development process. Sure, there have been points where there were technical problems, but, even with the best engineering, there are technical problems. Facebook was down yesterday morning. Technology has enabled Udemy to grow and prosper. Doesn't mean their mission and ops need to come from the tech world.

MarkLassoff · ‎04-16-2019

Way too much going on here. The video lacks a clear focal point at any given time and all of the background elements, between the words and disembodied heads, are massively distracting. Not to mention: This is a course on body language and you have everyone framed so no body language is visible!

MarkLassoff · ‎04-07-2019

Love this story from NPR https://www.npr.org/2019/04/07/707326070/a-math-teachers-life-summed-up-by-the-gifted-students-he-mentored?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0GSCXryI27HPNfRvzKd999elvLyNrCFF78YCWz_fEnBU6uM5c4DWKWgTs Good inspiration for those who teach.

MarkLassoff · ‎04-07-2019

I liked the graphics at the beginning quite a bit. Nicely done. You sound quality is good, although, some of the terminologies you used are not common spoke English- albeit mostly understandable. An example would be: "$25,000" is read as "twenty-five thousand dollars" not "twenty-five k dollar". It took me a moment to figure out what you meant there. 1) You need to enlarge the part of the code your working on to make it more visible on small screens. 2) I agree with the previous poster that the bed music needs to go during the formal part of the lesson. The music is going to make it harder for viewers to absorb the material. I do think you're ready to produce your course. I'd look into exactly what you want to teach as fundamental JavaScript is an extremely competitive area. You're going to have to offer something significantly differentiated or better to succeed.

MarkLassoff · ‎04-04-2019

Hi Brian: Good first attempt. Here's what I'd look at: 1) The color balance is off. Your (meaning you-- the human) color is very flat and dull. Not enough depth to the dark parts, so it looks very washed out to me. The dullness of your color is augmented by the use of primary colors in your background. You look very washed out and the colors in the background move to the foreground which is not what you want. 2) The proportions are off. You have to position yourself so it looks like you are part of the scene. The TV screen would have to be on a 5-foot tall stand and the ceiling would have to be about 18 feet for this. Cutting yourself off at the chest means the whole thing looks "off" to the viewer. Think about how tall things are and put yourself into the scene proportionally. The proportion problem is augmented by the first problem I mentioned. You, in the foreground, appear in a lighter register (kind of like how mountains far away appear lighter). One would expect the foreground to be more pronounced and the background to appear lighter. Trick: Take a screenshot of a real newscast or weathercast from Youtube and use that to judge the proportions against the background. There are some other issues I noticed, but, I think if you correct the two above you'll be making huge strides. Good luck, Mark

MarkLassoff · ‎04-03-2019

We just posted a YouTube video on this. We have 8 sources of royalty-free/ free to download images that we use. Hope you find it useful... https://youtu.be/L2KjhjFP_f8

MarkLassoff · ‎03-11-2019

I don't know why no one ever says this: If you don't like making courses, go do something else with your time. There's no imperative to make a course. So, if you don't enjoy it, and it gets you down, go do something else. No one will be disappointed that you decided to spend more time fishing, hanging out with your family, or playing soccer than making courses when you don't like to do it. Life is too short to spend time doing things you don't like. I don't have any trouble

MarkLassoff · ‎03-06-2019

Thanks, @GregReverdiau . Us pilots always find each other.

MarkLassoff · ‎03-06-2019

Thanks @JasonDion. I’d never expect to appear in a post about positivity. Thanks for the kind words. I’m glad you “get it.”

MarkLassoff · ‎02-05-2019

I prefer USDollars. Not speculative imaginary currency not backed by a government.

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MarkLassoff •
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Closing the Digital Skills Gap

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MarkLassoff •
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