Do your employees need an extra push when it comes to creativity?

A lot of people think that new ideas will just come to them and wait to be inspired by something that never appears. But, innovative thinking is really about applying the knowledge you already possess and using the environment around you to conjure up new thoughts.

When we talk about innovative thinking, we’re referring to the process of coming up with a new concept that’s different.

Whether it’s a product or business idea, it’s something that requires creativity. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be one thing, it can start as small parts and develop into a single idea.

Innovative thinking is big business for your company. Employees who show their creative potential through new concepts or even by solving old problems are always an asset to your workforce- and the truth is everyone has the potential to be an innovative thinker.

Of course, you can’t force someone to come up with good ideas. This is a sure way to not get the final product you’re looking for! It’s got to come naturally. But, there are a few things you can do to encourage-to slightly nudge-your employees to get creative and think outside the box.

By providing your employees with the right tools and the best work environment, you can ignite the creative spark that’s going to bring success to your business and fulfillment to your employee’s career.

So, how can you encourage innovative thinking in the office? What are these tools we’re talking about?

Well, a great way to promote creativity is through using the right training materials. Don’t worry, we know what you’re thinking. Training doesn’t typically stir up much excitement amongst employees…

But, if you have the right kind of training materials that don’t feel like hard work at all, you’ve got a new way to learn and motivate creative thinking. (Hint: it’s all about keeping it interesting!)

After all, most employees want to learn. You’ll find that if you can bring out their passion, they’ll perform better at their job and out will come a lot of innovative ideas and fresh perspectives.

You’ll have new and valuable ideas floating around the office in no time!

Let’s have a look at the best ways you can encourage innovative thinking in the workplace.

Innovative thinking doesn’t have to be by one individual nor by working on your own.

In fact, you’ll find that great ideas come from the inspiration of many. By providing a platform on your LMS where employees can brainstorm and share ideas together, you can encourage everyone to have their say on a topic.

An online forum is a place where you can bounce ideas and express new concepts together as a team. By creating an interactive place where employees can go to communicate, ask questions and support each other, new ideas can come to fruition and point towards future success.

You can create topics to discuss or leave it up to your employees to guide the way and choose what they want to discuss.

Employee training is rapidly moving to online resources and this is for good reason. There’s a lot of e-learning courses out there now that are doing a great job in keeping training interesting and engaging for employees.

Let’s be honest. Nobody wants to listen to someone lecturing on for hours on end – e-learning courses cover the important stuff in half the time.

What’s more, there’s courses out there that are delivered through amusing and colorful animations that keep employees interested in learning and feeds your imagination.

Pictures and stories can help your employees to create an image in their head and this can encourage them to come up with new concepts and ways to approach things in business.

If they’re more engaged with the information, the more likely they are to use it in real life scenarios and come up with new business ideas using what they’ve learned.

In addition, since a lot of e-learning courses are integrated onto mobile phones and tablets now, employees can learn on the go and at a time that suits them.

This is important for innovative thinking – it means they are fully switched on and ready to learn. This is going to boost their creativity and bring out the best in your employees.

A great way to make employees think about what they’re learning in training and apply it to future situations is by including e-learning courses that have assessments. These are usually featured at the end as simulation questions.

It’s easy to sit through training and listen to the information, but it’s another thing to understand it and use the key points. Simulations will not only test and evaluate your employee’s knowledge, but it can also help to bring out new ideas and new ways to approach a subject.

Employees can use these simulations in their workplace in the future, solving different problems and coming up with creative ways to tackle everyday tasks.

The great thing about all three of these ways to encourage innovative thinking is that they can be added to the LMS in your office instantly.

Plus, they’re all interlinked and can be used together simultaneously to help employees grow and promote successful business for your company.

It’s all about finding ways to release an employee’s skills and creativity. We’re all capable of innovative thinking – we’ve just got to realize it!


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Over the past few months the Go1 team has been improving on the functionality of our Awards tools that allow you to create custom training programs for your team combining your own training with off the shelf content. In our November update we have made assigning Awards to users in bulk easier by leveraging our groups tools.

Admins can assign award to group or learner

It’s now quick and easy to assign an award to a group by clicking the Assign Learning button on the Award. This can the be viewed by the learner in the Learning tab, and My Learning assigned page.

Improved user interface for small devices

Sign up for a free trial today and try it out for yourself!

If you have any questions about any of the updates and improvements listed above, please let us know and our Customer Success Team can help you out!

Find out what’s new in the Go1 November update

If you’re a business owner or employer, you have certain responsibilities when it comes to first aid in the workplace.

As Safe Work Australia reminds us, “incidents can happen without warning and in every type of workplace - it is critical you are prepared for any first aid emergencies that could happen in yours.”

No matter what industry you’re in, it’s important that employees know how to respond in the event of an emergency. You can help staff feel more prepared by providing regular workplace first aid training.

By complying with national first aid code of practice, and ensuring you have qualified, trained first aiders on hand, you can significantly reduce the impact of incidents at your workplace.  You’ll also be helping individual employees to develop the skills – and confidence – they need to make the right decisions in the event of a first aid emergency.

The Responsibility of Employers for First Aid 

All Australian employers are responsible for providing staff with a safe workplace, free from hazards and health risks – and this includes having proper first aid procedures, facilities and equipment in place.

If you run a company or organisation, it’s important that your business is compliant with current workplace safety laws and regulations, to promote a safer workplace and ensure the safety and wellbeing of your employees.

Employers are legally responsible for providing first aid equipment in the workplace, in locations that all staff can easily access, and close to areas that present higher risk of accident or injury. If you’re a large worksite or organisation, spread out across a number of floors or buildings, this means providing multiple first aid kits. If employees travel for work, kits must also be present in all company vehicles.

Your business must also make sure there’s an adequate number of trained first aid providers that employees can go to for assistance. As a rule of thumb, Safe Work Australia advises that there should be one first aider for every:

50 workers in low-risk workplaces (an office)

25 workers in high-risk workplaces (a construction site)

These first aid officers must hold a current first aid certificate that is relevant to their state, and have the skills and knowledge to handle the situation until further medical assistance arrives, if necessary.

Helping Staff to Prepare for First Aid Incidents

Would your staff know what to do in the event of a first aid incident in the workplace?

Whether your workplace is considered high or low risk for first aid incidents, it pays to be prepared. It’s not just constructions sites or factories that present a risk to employees – team members can still experience serious cuts, burns or falls in an office environment.

The best way to help staff feel prepared is to provide workplace first aid training for all employees. Training modules should be repeated on a regular basis to make sure individuals can refresh their knowledge and skills from time to time.

While it’s important for all staff to attend first aid training, your designated first aiders will require more intensive additional training to be qualified to respond to incidents in the workplace.

Invest in First Aid Training for All Staff

So what’s the best way to deliver first aid training to staff across your organisation?

Through the use of workshops, online courses and eLearning training modules, you can make sure employees are properly engaged in workplace safety, while reducing the risk of accidents, injuries and hazards for your organisation.

If you’re an employer ready to invest in workplace first aid training, Go1 can make this process a whole lot easier for you and your staff.

You can make your training process quick and easy by enrolling your teams in accredited first aid courses through the Go1 platform. We provide the online courses that every Australian business needs, including first aid training.

By investing in first aid training for your staff, you’ll be making the safety of your workplace a top priority and showing your commitment to the safety and wellbeing of your employees. You’ll also have peace of mind knowing that your business is compliant with Australian laws and regulations.

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

There are many reasons why you should consider getting first aid training. We've listed them here along with explaining why first aid is essential.

Does your workplace have someone trained in first aid?

The concept of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy is one of those ideas that can change your life when learned. It is simple, and some people might even call it cheesy. But it is highly relevant to success, being applicable not only in leadership but in life in general, and the results are fascinating.

But first, let's understand what a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy is. In his 1948 article "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy", Robert K. Merton, the person who is credited with coining the term, defines it as:

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true.

In one of his books (Social Theory and Social Structure), Merton exemplifies this concept with a fictitious story of a Bank. Initially well managed and in a healthy financial situation, this Bank, like all banks, has some liquid assets (cash), but most of its assets are invested in various ventures. At a point in time, an unusual amount of customers, by chance, come to withdraw large amounts of their money. Some other customers, seeing this, begin to worry.

False rumours spread that something is wrong with the bank and more customers, hearing that, rush to the bank to try to get some of their money out while they still can. The number of customers at the bank increases, as does their annoyance and excitement, which in turn fuels the false rumours of the bank's insolvency and upcoming bankruptcy, causing more customers to come and try to withdraw their money. At the beginning of the day, the bank was not insolvent. But the rumour of insolvency caused a sudden demand for withdrawal by too many customers, which could not be answered in that short notice, causing the bank to become insolvent and declare bankruptcy.

In the story above, the rumours of the bank possibly going into insolvency (the "prophecy") actually caused itself to come true. If there were no rumours, there wouldn't be any insolvency.

Another example of a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy is the Pygmalion Effect (the phenomenon whereby higher expectations lead to an increase in performance). A well-known study conducted by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson demonstrated that teachers expectations of students actually affect their learning outcomes. In that study, students from a school were initially tested but their test results were kept in secret from teachers. The teachers were told that a group of those students were high potential individuals and they would outperform the rest of the students by end of year.

As a consequence, the attention and behaviour of the teachers towards those students changed, their expectations increased, and by end of the year, those students did outperform the rest. However, that ‘special’ group had actually been randomly selected and there had been no indication from the initial test that those students were better or worse than the others. The teachers’ expectations and behaviours towards the students actually caused the students to become and perform better.

Self-fulfilling prophecies work not only socially, such as with your team or individual people, but also affect your own self. Being an optimist or pessimist is also a form of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Just think about it. As humans, we are equipped with selective attention. So, if you start your Monday with a firm belief that it will be a good day, it is more likely that you will pay more attention and put more weight on the positive things that happen on that day (or give them a positive spin), making it a nice day.

Conversely, if you start your Monday thinking that Mondays are always terrible, you will more likely pay more attention and put more weight on the negative things that happen on that day (or put a negative spin on them), making it terrible, no matter that a lot of positive and negative things happen on any given day.

There are countless studies that indicate that optimists live longer, are healthier, more resilient, more successful, richer, happier and probably have better sex lives. It makes sense. If you are generally a happier, positive person, more people will want to stay around you, chat with you and like you in general. This gives openings for more relationships and opportunities, giving you more chances to achieve your objectives and desires.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy is a phenomenon that can generate wanted or unwanted consequences. As we mentioned, the prophecy itself might be detrimental to people or organisations, and when left unchecked can cause its self-fulfilment.

However, great leaders know how to use the Self-fulfilling Prophecy for the creation and achievement of great things. Steve Jobs was a man known for his "reality distortion field" (an unrealistic view of situations coupled with excellent persuasion skills, causing many people to believe in his vision, which in turn enabled it to become a reality).

If it wasn't his crazy "prophecy" that Apple would create a completely user-friendly full touch-screen smartphone with an app store, the iPhone wouldn't have happened. Elon Musk's vision of creating reusable rockets, significantly cutting costs of space travel, trumping giants in the aerospace industry, and landing them upright was initially considered completely insane, until enough of the right people believed in him, put money in the idea, and started to work for him. The "prophecy" became reality in 2015 when SpaceX rocket first landed upright. This, in itself, is part of an even bigger Self-Fulfilling Prophecy from Musk, one still to be realised.

We can probably say that all great things have been created or achieved in part by the use of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Just think about it. To create a building, or a company, or to win a competition, people can only achieve it if they go through a lot of obstacles, if they have the energy and determination to follow through, and if they gather the help of enough of the right people working towards the same objective. All this can only be achieved if these people believe that that vision can be achieved. When you establish a compelling vision and communicate it properly, it has a great potential to become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.

The most critical of you might be saying "ok, but a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy can only be called that at the end, once it is actually fulfilled, and not all missions, visions or objectives become reality”. Yes, you are correct, but practically all successful achievements started somehow as ‘prophecies’. They all needed to be believed in to become true. They are all results of people's perceptions, actions and behaviours towards that vision. Consequently, creating a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, and believing in it and communicating it, is a necessary step in achieving success.

So, when you see a leader in your organisation saying "our product will be the most used product in the world", do not discard it. If you do so, you will be contributing to its demise. If you and enough of the right people believe in it, and act towards it, only then it has a real chance of becoming reality.

If you are a leader, use this concept in your favour. Create worthy Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and believe in them. Communicate them properly and frequently to your team. Make them believe in them and get allies to believe in them too. The greater number of people believing in your vision, the greater the possibility of it to become a reality. The belief, coupled with the right attitude and hard work that comes with it, causes the vision to become true.

The concept of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy is one of those ideas that can change your life when learned. Learn how to apply it to your work-life.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and leadership

As a new hire at Go1, I’m getting to experience the unique way that Go1 on-boards their staff. Of course, there’s a lot of nice meet and greets and face to face learning, but on top of this I’m glad to have been able to dive into the myriad of learning content available as part of Go1 Premium. So, I thought I’d put together a few of the essential courses that any new hire should complete within their first month.

Business is risky and compliance is necessary. Whether you’re a high-growth tech startup or a big player in the construction market, every organisation needs to be compliant with the relevant regulatory training in their industry. From a general point of view, a course like Work Health and Safety Fundamentals is a great place to start. As a course that’s been reviewed by the National Safety Council of Australia, and designed to provide an understanding of health and safety in the workplace, it lays a great foundation for any employee to start with.

We’ve all been there. Someone from the accounting and finance department starts speaking to you about cash flow and ratios or sends through a spreadsheet, and suddenly it seems like they’re speaking in tongues and writing in code. Finance for Non-Finance Managers is just one example of the great courses in the Go1 Premium library designed to help you build your skillset outside of what you were hired to do.

There’s more to work than just the technical execution of what you do. In dynamic and often stressful environments, the difference between a great employee and the rest can quite easily be how they communicate and work with each other. Courses like Managing Emotions include strategies and guidelines to deal with a variety of scenarios from success to failure, dealing with rejection, and handling general workplace stress.

STEP 4: Look after yourself and those around you

Workplaces are a collection of people from a variety of different backgrounds, all with individual personal lives. You might not think it, but 1 in 6 of us is dealing with a mental health problem like anxiety, depression, or stress. The effects of these illnesses are as real as a broken leg, but there’s no plaster cast to show for it. So it can be really difficult to spot the signs, and even harder to talk about, especially at work where many people still feel scared and confused about the issue. Mental Health at Work is a fantastic course which begins to simplify and de-myth a lot of issues, and even covers things from a legal and policy perspective.

There you have it – four great courses that will help any new employee that’s settling into a workplace.
Whether it’s getting compliant in order to have a safe work day, looking after yourself in another way, or simply learning new things - there’s a wide range of courses available to suit your interests.


We know that you want to learn more about how to automate your learning, and we’re here to help!

We’re excited to announce the next eLearning Assist will be taking place on November 24th at 8:30am Australian Eastern Standard Time (November 23rd 2:30pm Pacific Standard Time).

In Episode 4 of The eLearning Assist we are going to be taking a close look at the groups functionality within your Go1 portal. By taking full advantage of groups you will be able to start automating assigned learning, using the bulk upload feature which allows you to add users to groups at the same time as you add them to the portal. You can then easily automate the assigning of learning to members within your groups.

We will be kicking things off with a short discussion about the learning automation, and why you might start setting up groups for your team. This will be followed with a live demo by Camden McKenzie of the Go1 team who will walk you through the process from start to finish.


To round out the session we will be opening up the floor for Q&A, so if you have any questions about something that you are working on, or setting up your portal, we will be there to help you out.

The eLearning Assist takes place every month and covers trending industry information, a demonstration of a Go1 feature, and a Q&A session where we will cover any questions you might have around anything to do with online learning, content, training, or the Go1 platform.

Haven’t got a Go1 portal yet? Sign up for free today!

The eLearning Assist: Episode 4 - automating assigned learning with groups

Need a hand setting up your Go1 portal? Want to feel more confident getting everything ready for your team?

In our most recent episode of The eLearning Assist, we showed users exactly how to create and configure their learning portal. And because we know that sometimes it can be hard to attend webinars, we’ve put together a recap of the episode for anyone who missed out.

Every episode of The eLearning Assist is run be a different member of the Go1 team so that you can tap into the knowledge within the team, covering all aspects of eLearning from creating content, learning principles, improving processes, selling courses, compliance, and expanding your training program.

As Scott said during the webinar, the live demo really shows how “in just 15 minutes, you can get everything set up, get your portal customised, and get ready to add users in so they can get learning!”


The sessions are free for anyone to attend, and are a great chance to learn some new skills that you can apply in your organisation.

You can view the full webinar video below to learn more:


If you have any questions about any of the items covered in this episode, please get in touch as we’d love to help you out! Also, if there are any topics that you would like to see us cover in our next episode, let us know so we can make sure we include a demo to walk you through everything.

Don’t have a Go1 Portal? Sign up for a free portal today!

The eLearning Assist: Episode 3 catchup – creating and configuring a learning portal from scratch

Did you know there’s more bacteria on your kitchen cutting board than your toilet?

While it may be hard to believe, germs can be anywhere and since they’re micro-organisms, they can’t be seen by our own eyes. They can spread quickly and easily, meaning we can get sick and suffer from illness.

Of course, we all know germs aren’t good for our health. But, it can be especially dangerous when there’s bacteria around areas we cook and serve food.

If you run a business that involves food production or service, you have a responsibility to ensure the best food safety practices and hygiene in the workplace. After all, nobody wants to poison their customers!

Food safety can involve anything from handling food and preparing it to how substances should be stored and surfaces cleaned afterwards.

In fact, food safety and hygiene are so important, there’s legal guidelines in place to ensure a minimum standard of protection for consumers.

When you don’t run a clean kitchen, your business risks ruining its good reputation and livelihood.

Nobody wants their business shut down, so that’s why it’s important to follow the rules and teach your employees about the best food safety practices and how they can keep good hygiene.

This Food Safety and Hygiene course is ideal for teaching employees the right ways to work in an environment cooking and serving food.

The goal of this course is to alert employees to the hazards presented by germs in the kitchen and how they can keep everyone safe from them. It explains the best hygiene practices and looks at food safety information that everyone needs to know.

This e-learning course is broken down into different sections so that the information is engaging and easy to understand.

This section highlights that employees have a responsibility to follow proper food safety procedures. After all, it’s the law.

The aim of having these legal rules is to prevent people getting sick and as long as employees know the basics, they can make sure everyone stays safe.

The course gives users a list for practicing good personal hygiene and workplace cleanliness.

This content points out that food safety hazards aren’t always in the workplace, but can be present in farms or factories beforehand.

It’s all about hygienic conditions and other employees following food safety too. Employees are able to click on images at this point to find out more about the hazards, such as chemicals and microbiological dangers.

Bad practices and poor hygiene lead to foodborne diseases – this section explains the four common types of bacteria can make us sick. This includes detailing where they can be found and how it can cause harmful foodborne diseases.

In addition, the course describes the symptoms you can expect from illness and how they can begin between 12-72 hours after eating contaminated food.

Employees can learn about how microbes and allergens can be transferred by hands, equipment and surfaces and contaminate our food.

This is usually by raw food touching cooked food through bad practices and bad personal hygiene. This section provides advice on how to avoid cross contamination through steps, such as disinfecting surfaces and washing your hands.

Having dirty hands can spread germs. This section highlights the importance of washing your hands to stop the spreading of bacteria and viruses in a food environment, as well as giving you tips on how your hands can be squeaky clean.

It also provides a to-do list for the best personal hygiene, which includes tying hair back and using gloves, as well as covering up cuts and bruises. Things to avoid doing in the workplace are given too.

Knowing how to store food properly can help to prevent bacteria growth. This section sets out the rules for food storage and how to keep food in fridges and freezers and how to dispose of spoilt or outdated food.

This section acts as a reminder of how important it is to tell someone if you’re sick, especially your supervisor.

You should even advise when someone you live with has an illness, as well as tell your doctor you work around food. This way you can avoid spreading germs and sickness.

The course clarifies how good cleaning practices can stop foodborne diseases. This includes wearing gloves, using disposable cloths and how you can wash surfaces and equipment.

This section details how you should carry out a general clean of the area with a suitable detergent and rinse, following by disinfection. It’s important to also pay attention to manufacturer instructions on cleaning products to use them properly.

Pests, such as rats and cockroaches, are attracted to places where there’s food. This section explains how pests can spread harmful diseases by contaminating food and workplaces.

This can lead to legal penalties, losing your job and even closure. The signs that you may have a problem with pests are displayed on-screen and five simple rules are shared that can promote proper food safety that keeps pests away.

Employees are kept involved with the content of this e-learning course through an engaging voiceover and amusing, colorful animation.

The main points are communicated through easy to read video slides and a self-study workbook is provided that covers the key information for employees to take away from the course. This includes a short quiz at the end so you can test your learning.

As a business, your customers and their safety are your priority. This is especially true when you work in an environment serving food. There’s lot of rules to follow and this means that the responsibility to adhere to them falls on your employees.

Foodborne diseases are easily preventable and by following proper food safety and practicing good hygiene, you can make sure your customers don’t get sick and continue to enjoy your business.

Food safety and hygiene in workplaces is an important aspect of keeping employees healthy, safe, and productive. Find out more here!

Food safety and hygiene in the workplace

As an eLearning professional, you’re no doubt designing and developing learning materials regularly. You’ve most likely spent a lot of time and effort creating online courses, presentations, webinars and digital content. Have you ever thought about selling your training content?

There’s a huge market for online courses and that market will only continue to grow. So why not be part of it? There are many people selling their online courses – establishing themselves as subject matter experts, sharing their knowledge with others, and earning a decent income from it!

With so many great online tools readily available to the public, selling your own educational content has never been easier. Learning Management Systems and eLearning platforms allow content creators and course designers to easily sell courses online, either to individual learners or organisations looking to purchase training materials.

Here are some things you might want to know, if you’re considering selling your own content.

What Kind of Learning Content Can You Sell?

Think about the kind of learning content you’ve already created throughout your career in your line of work.

Obviously, your employer will own the intellectual property of any content that you’ve created in the course of your employment. So we’re not talking about selling any materials that you’ve produced for companies that you work for. But there’s no reason you can’t share the knowledge and experience you’ve gained from working in your industry with other learners.

This knowledge and experience allows you to create quality training materials in your own time, that will be valued by other organisations or individual learners looking to boost their professional development.

The most popular and in-demand learning content is online courses. As we said, with the rise of so many different types of LMS and eLearning platforms, it’s now easier than ever for content creators to sell their courses online. But there is also a market for webinars, presentations, videos, and digital content – all learning content is valuable.

Are People Willing to Pay for Training Content?

You might be wondering why people or companies would buy your training content when there are so many resources available online for free.

The truth is, when something is free, you often get what you pay for. These days, time is a valuable resource. When it comes to online training content, it can take a lot of time to sort the wheat from the chaff. There’s a lot out there! An organisation is more likely to pay for good materials than run the risk of using free content that ends up being poor quality.

Once learners, or companies, find someone who creates great content and charges a fair price, they’re highly likely to continue paying the cost. Making your training materials the best you can, taking pride in their quality and knowing what they’re worth, is all part of creating your own brand value.

People buy online courses for one reason – they’ve got a question or need and they want it answered.

By selling your training content online, you’re providing learners with a fast, simple and high-quality solution to their problem or pain point. But you also need to know how to make your training content stand out from other eLearning professionals addressing the same needs.

Steve Penfold, Customer Success Director at Elucidat, suggests differentiating your training content by using the following tactics.

Incorporate gamification – games and activities – into training content to encourage engagement with learners, while also adding a bit of fun to learning.

Use a mobile-friendly authoring tool when creating your online courses – you’ll want to find an authoring tool that delivers learning to all different screen sizes for desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone.

Utilise branching, rather than linear paths when designing training courses – modern learners like to have control over their learning experience, so use an authoring tool that allows you to create branching scenarios that enable learners to make decisions about what they want to learn next.

Think about what gives you a competitive edge and makes your offerings unique. Could you target a particular demographic with content that appeals specifically to them? Use your knowledge and experience to create training content that speaks directly to this audience's needs.

By knowing what your audience wants and needs, and putting your own creative spin on all your training materials, you’ll be able to successfully connect with learners. And keep them coming back for more.

Want more tips and tricks for selling your training content and online courses? 

Matthias Hombauer of howtobecomearockstarphotographer.com shares all his best secrets about getting started with selling online courses.


Why you should be selling your training content

Creating online course materials for your staff or students? You might want to invest some time in improving your writing skills, to make sure you’re communicating and engaging well with your audience.

Well-written content is critical to the success of any eLearning project. No matter how fancy or cool your graphics are, without clear, concise content you’ll struggle to connect with an audience.

When writing the content for your online courses, you’ll need to use language that conveys clear messages to your learners and encourages them to engage with the materials. If your target audience can’t connect with the words on screen, you’ll lose them. In fact, you might not even reel them in to begin with.

Here are some tips to help you improve your writing skills for eLearning courses. You'll find yourself creating online courses that are far more effective and successful in no time.

Pam Jones, Director of Eight Interactive, has been creating global eLearning content for over sixteen years and believes “words are the best thing we have to make eLearning that bit more excellent.”

“By its very nature, eLearning and its design is centered around technology. It’s technology that makes it possible after all. But it’s easy to get carried away with whizz bang graphics and forget the power of words to get an eLearning message across,” explains Jones.

She recommends first taking the time to come up with a good title for your online course, as this is an important step in having learners connect and engage with your content. Titles should speak directly to the learner about what your course will offer or how it will improve a particular aspect of their lives.

Give your course a title that solves your target audience’s immediate pain point. Jones suggests “How To Create Attention Grabbing eLearning Course Titles” as an example of a course title that identifies a need. Think about the need your learners have – what do they want to learn today. Then turn that need into a clear title.

Break Your Content Down into Smaller Chunks

When writing content for your eLearning course, you want to break the information down into easily digestible chunks for your learners.

A study found that 79% of people reading online will merely scan or skim content looking for particular phrases or words. Only 16% read every word. Presenting your content in big long slabs of text will only turn learners away, so make sure your learning materials can be easily skim read on the screen.

To do this, divide your content into independent topics and sections, allowing your audience to find relevant information quickly – even if they are skimming over pages.

Deliver your content in small, bite-sized chunks, with a maximum of five bullet points per page. Use short, concise sentences – long sentences force students to slow down and focus their attention on wording, versus learning. So try to keep your sentences to around 20-30 words for online course materials.

It’s not just your course title that needs to be clear and direct. You want to keep this running through the entire course, with language that’s clear, simple and easy to read. This will help learners focus on the content, absorbing and retaining knowledge quickly and easily.

As we said above, no matter how fancy or cool your graphics are, they can’t hide or make up for poorly written content. Words are our most powerful tool - so we should learn how to use them well. Write your content as though you’re sitting down with each learner and talking directly to them. Flowery, overly-embellished writing and academic tones don’t translate well to eLearning materials.

Once you’ve finished writing, check and re-check your content. Are your course materials free of spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors? Is your language clear and concise? Have you written your content in a consistent and appropriate tone for your audience?

While you’re working on improving your writing skills, have someone else look over your course content before publishing. Ask them for feedback on the flow of your language and the clarity of your content. They may also pick up on any outstanding typos and errors that you’ve overlooked.

Like most professions, the learning industry is full of jargon and buzzwords. We love our microlearning, mLearning, and blended learning. Not to mention all the acronyms – LMS, MOOCs, APIs, SCORM, BYOD… you get the picture!

When you’re inside the eLearning bubble, it can be easy to forget that other people don’t necessarily use or come across these words in their everyday language. But these people are your audience. Your learners. So it’s important to tone down the jargon and buzzwords if you want to connect and engage with them.

Subject matter experts often present information in a way that’s too technical for a general audience. When writing your content, keep a constant check on using technical language and try to use ‘plain English’ terms as much as possible.

As you continue to improve your writing skills, you'll find that your eLearning courses become more effective and engaging with learners.


Want more tips for creating online courses?

Our handy eLearning course design checklist will help you feel more confident in your design process, with plenty of useful information on graphics, multimedia, accessibility and fonts.

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How to improve your writing skills for eLearning courses

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