You want to do what?!

You want to create your own online course?

In this presentation at the Illinois Online Conference 2005, I will give you some behind-the-scenes looks at how to create a standalone site that can hold an online course of your own creation.

Along the way, we'll discuss programs I recommend for authoring the content, adding navigation, enhancing it with multimedia, hosting it on the Web, marketing the finished product and getting paid for it.

Sound fun? It is, but it's a whole lot of work, too. The potential for reaching dozens, hundreds or even thousands of eager learners is there for those who do that work. Online education is a growth industry at every level, from elementary through graduate schools.

1000% Return on Investment -- Guaranteed!
With this presentation, you might search your mind for something you can teach people outside the educational system, as I did some years ago with my first online course, hosted at Blackboard.com, called "1000% Return on Investment -- Guaranteed!"

It was a pictorial tutorial on how to grow garlic in your backyard. One garlic clove turns into a bulb of at least 10 cloves, giving you a 1000% return on your investment of a few hours, in addition to the legendary health benefits that come from consuming garlic. For one thing, if you eat garlic daily people stay at least 10 feet away from you, so you don't get their colds!

Blackboard shut down its person-to-person teaching and learning opportunity shortly after that course was uploaded, so I didn't get a chance to see how many wanted to multiply their wealth like that.

But in the years since then, I've created courses that have found students happy to learn computer applications. In this presentation, I hope to inspire you to try your hand at a course you can market yourself. I can't guarantee a 1000% return on your investment of time and money -- or even a 1% return. But if you like to teach, you may find people who want to learn something from you.

This topic was covered live at the Illinois Online Conference 2005 on Thursday, February 17 at 3:00 pm Central. Software licenses for iNavigate were offered by Cirkadia.com at the end of the presentation -- nearly $500 worth! To see if there are any more available, follow the directions below. I hope you enjoy this web-based information whether you win or not.