September 25, 2017 — In this session I will share some insight on WordPress as a platform and as a tool to design and manage online courses. Attendees learn how WordPress components and plugins can help to create and distribute learning content, embed learner activities and enable communication between instructors and learners.

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February 7, 2017 — In this talk, I will deliver a detailed case study on how WordPress can be used to deliver online courses and build highly engaged communities of students.

Most online courses achieve student completion rates of around 2% – 10% according to this MOOCS research study (http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html)

We have achieved 65% completion rates of our online courses by building incredibly engaging courses and a world class learning environment built on WordPress. The best part of this talk is that the online courses and community we have built are all for WordPress developers and freelancers so this is truly a WordPress showcase piece.

The online education market is worth over US$100BN and WordPress provides a great platform for all online educators to improve the quality of their courses and deliver better student outcomes.

The core technology covered will include WordPress, BuddyPress, bbPress, BadgeOS and the LearnDash Learning Management System.

I will also talk about the psychology and strategy of delivering an online course to maximise student engagement and completion rates.

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January 6, 2017 — Teaching through Online Courses & eLearning is booming and WordPress along with some cool plugins are making it easier than ever. In this session, I will share why you should consider creating online courses and how to do it.

We will discuss which tools, plugins, and resources to use to create, host and sell your online courses (starting with WordPress, of course!). I’ll talk about how you can package your intellectual property and make online courses to sell. We will then give case studies of successful online courses and how they were able to leverage the power of online courses to teach more effectively and grow their audience.

(I believe that learning how to properly teach online and package it together using WordPress based tools is a very popular topic and something that many will want to learn about in my session.)

October 30, 2016 — Online courses are hot in business right now, and the best classes are much more than a series of videos. With WordPress, you can create a perfect platform for learning along with solid courses to serve your audience. We’ll explore what makes a great platform and a solid course plus WordPress configuration options to create this. From bbPress and Learning Management Systems to BuddyPress, we’ll look at what’s possible along with difficulty levels of the various implementations.

Whether you are a business owner looking into how online courses can increase business or a developer looking for a new package to offer customers, this session is for you.

A downloadable guide and private area demonstrating one of the implementations will be available to attendees.

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October 10, 2016 — Online courses are hot in business, right now, and the best classes are much more than a series of videos. With WordPress, you can create a perfect platform for learning along with solid courses to serve your audience. We’ll explore what makes a great platform and a solid course plus WordPress configuration options to create this. From bbPress and Learning Management Systems to BuddyPress, we’ll look at what’s possible along with difficulty levels of the various implementations.

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December 12, 2015 — From the basics of using a simple membership plugin to evaluating several premium courseware plugins, we’ll look at the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of courseware creation.
From the technical “know-how” of creating online courses, to the business angle on possibilities and what to teach, this session will provide the details to help create a successful training course.

October 2, 2015 — Are you a freelancer who is at capacity with clients but aren’t earning the income you would like to be? Are you a freelancer looking to expand your reach beyond the one on one client work? If you answered ‘Yes’ to either or both of those questions then this is a must see talk for you!
Helena will help you plan your first online course by helping you with following tasks:
Do you have a list? If not start building one now so you can survey your list to find out what they may want.
Can your current skills, the ones you use in your freelance business with one-on-one clients, translate into an online course?
– Skills assessment.
– Target market – who are you be able to teach your skills to?
– Creating your course – delivered live or pre-recorded?
– Minimum viable product and iterate as you go or at each release.
– Fitting course creation amongst current work.
– Cut back on one-on-one work to make time to deliver the course.
– Specific launches or Evergreen course.

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