A good toolkit is part of every Course Creators process and in this post, I thought I would share with you some handy course creator tools you can pack your course creators toolkit with.
Recording and Audio Tools:
Smartphone: For me, 90% of my course content is recorded on my smartphone unless I am hiring a studio or running a program where I have the days recorded.
I use the Open Camera App on Android as it helps sync my audio and video really well. I have heard great things for ProShot for Iphone Users.
Webcam: A good webcam is another great way to record your course content. The Logitech Brio is one we have in our kit and the quality and image is great.
Lights: The camera will only do so much, good lighting can make or break a video. Thanks to eBay you can get a good lighting set without breaking the bank. You can get a full studio set for around $80 or a ring light to clip on your phone for around $20 (I have both).
Microphone: Audio is another make or break in course creation, so getting good mic is a must. I am a Rode girl and in my kit we have a Smart Lav, Video Mic Me and a Rode studio mic.
Tripods: Using a tripod means your video stays still and level. We’ve all gritted out teeth through a wonky video, so a tripod is a good investment.
Video Creation and Editing:
WeVideo: for Editing Video
WeVideo is the online video editor that makes it easy to capture, create, view and share your movies at up to 4K resolution for stunning playback anywhere. Advanced video editing features are made easy through a simple interface. You don’t need to be a pro to create great movies.
Start projects on one device and pick up where you left off on another. It works on any Mac or PC computer browser, Chromebook, iOS, and Android device.
Use your imagination, not automation. You’re in complete control, with text, transitions, motion effects, green screen and much more!
Wevideo is what we use for all our to camera editing
Animoto – Create amazing promo Videos
Create powerful, professional marketing videos with Animoto’s incredibly simple video editor.
You don’t need a design degree or heaps of technical skill to create video. Follow the steps in the Animoto builder and you are ready to create your video in the Cloud.
Lumen5 Create Video from your blog posts and text
Lumen5 takes your blog posts and turns the key messages into videos you can share. Not only does the platform offer tools to create a video, Lumen5 takes it a step further to supply you with all the resources needed to produce shareworthy videos.
It is a great way to make text more engaging for your course.
InVideo: Is a good all round video tool
From templated videos through to text to video creation it is great for social and promotional videos and making text less boring. You can even animate your logos.
Rev.com: for video captions so your learners can read as they listen
This one has been in my toolkit ever since I started with video as it saves me so much time with captioning and transcribing my videos. And let’s face it, while I love the filming, editing, and loading of the video, the captioning is not my thing, and if it was not for a service like Rev I might just leave it! (There I said it!)
- You send your files to Rev either via upload or YouTube import
- Turn around in most cases 24 hours or less for files under 30 minutes
- And, depending on what you ordered, you will get your captions or transcript
If you click on the link above, Rev have kindly offered my network a $10 coupon to start off.
Image Creation:
Wordswag: – for text image creation
This is the app you see us use to create a lot of the memes within our groups. It allows us to create beautiful custom text layouts with images that would normally take minutes – or even hours – with just a tap.
Wordswag allows to to take words and create beautiful Insta worthy images with them. Which is a great way to take key tips from your course and promote them
Canva – For Image Design for your Course and Social Media
Canva makes design fun, simple and easy. They have opened up design to the average user with great tools, easy-to-follow templates and customising tools. The more you use it, the more creative you will become.
We use Canva to create our custom graphics for the courses, infographics and sometimes even a course logo like you see on this course.
Visme: My go-to for infographics
Visme makes infographics easy for blogging. Not just about Infographics, Visme also allows you to create charts and reports, along with social graphics.
While the branding person in me loves a good logo design with a designer, Logojoy does offer a great option for those testing the market or wanting to brand a course, eBook etc, and even to generate an idea or two.
Pixabay: For finding images to match your course style
Select from thousands of free images and videos you can use anywhere. All images and videos on Pixabay are released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0.
You may download, modify, distribute, and use them royalty-free for anything you like, even in commercial applications.
Planning and Organisation Tools:
Trello – For planning Content and Promotion:
Trello is a great planning tool and when it comes to course creation it allows you to create plans, checklists, and cards and to get you started I have created an example board in the Course Creators Circle Hub.
Clickup is the next level for planning:
I was a Trello girl for years and while I still love it for planning ClickUp takes your course planning to the next level as you can create sub tasks and workflows and take your course planning that bit further. You can import our course creators Trello board into Clickup if you wish too.
The more we create with tools the more logins we need to remember so Lastpass helps keep track of them, on the web and keeps them safe too. (No-one needs a head full of passwords)
Marketing and Social Media Tools:
MeetEdgar – My Fav for Evergreen Sharing
MeetEdagr, along with Missing Lettr, are my two must-haves for sharing content. You can set your posts via categories, share images, videos and links. Edgar then cycles that content for you so you don’t forget to promote what you do. It is great for sharing your tips, landing pages and more.
The bonus is you can even set an expiry date for things like pre-sale prices and offers (which means you don’t have to come back and switch off another thing).
MissingLettr – Takes your blog posts and Landing Pages and create 12 months worth of social posts
MissingLettr is your set and forget social friend. You enter the URL of your blog post or landing page and it creates 2, 6 or 12 months of social media posts for you, drawing from the key messages on the page that the AI thinks readers will engage with.
Loomly – Another great programming tool to explore:
Loomly helps you create better content, faster, and like Edgar is great for evergreen content. It is Calendar-focused so great for those who want a Calendar View
Interact – for Creating Quizzes that lead to your sales page/s
Quizzes are a great way to engage your potential students in the sales process and interact helps you create engaging quizzes you can use in a Facebook ad, posts, and on your website. The templates are easy to use and simple to follow.
Repurpose.io: Reshare your live videos
Repurpose is a pretty cool way to reshare videos. It’s fully automated (set it and forget it) and works with audio podcast to YouTube and Facebook, audio podcast to SoundCloud, Facebook Live to YouTube and more.
A must-have in my mind for email branding and marketing, Wisestamp allows you to create a professional email signature which you can add your latest promotions, blog post feed and more, simply and easily.
Wisestamp works with Gmail & Google Apps, Outlook, Mac mail, iPhone etc.
With Wisestamp you can create an effective signature in seconds:
- Add your Social networks & profiles
- Add your photo/logo, your contact details etc.
- Share your latest statuses, add a disclaimer, add call to actions to promote things like your course
Some of the links in this post are to our affiliate partners and we like the product so much we partnered with them. It does not affect my recommendation of the tool all views in the post are my own and genuine.
