Lessons make up the body of your courses. They are the smallest component and are used as the building blocks when putting your courses together. They can contain text, photos, videos, and file attachments, and may be built first outside of courses or added quickly while creating or editing a course.

In this guide we will take a closer look at lessons and discuss what they can include, how they are created, and how they are edited.

To learn more about building full courses, check out our guides on Online Course Basics and Building & Managing Courses.

Though lessons are accessed through courses, you do not need to have the exact structure of your entire course worked out before getting started. Often, it can be easiest to get your basic components done first, then build the overall arrangement from there. Starting with lessons outside of courses allows you to compose your ideas without having to worry about where exactly they are going to fit within the "big picture".

To start creating lessons, select the "Actions" button at the top of your main Courses Dashboard then select "Create Lesson" from the drop-down menu.

That will take you to the New Lesson form. Use the fields on this form to create your lesson. The "Title" field will display both for clients accessing the lesson through a course and for users building courses, so try to choose something short but descriptive. The "Content" field is used to set up the body of the lesson. Add text, images, or documents to this field to help pass on the information you have that is relevant to your lesson.

There are a variety of formatting options when adding your course content. Lets take a look at each available feature and what the different types of formatting look like for clients viewing your courses.

Once you have added the desired content to your lesson, click the "Create Lesson" button to save it to your unassigned lessons list.

All lessons on that list can be used to build courses. For more information on that process, check out our help article on Building & Managing Courses.

If you prefer to build the general structure of your courses first, or perhaps you think of an additional lesson that you would like to include while building your course, you can quickly add lessons from the course creation page. This is done by selecting the green "New Lesson Title" field, adding a lesson title, and dragging the field to the desired spot within the course. Use the "Create New Lesson" button to add more green lesson title fields. When your course is saved, the new lesson(s) will be created.

It's important to note that when lessons are added this way you will be able to choose only the name for the lesson at the time of its creation. Once you have saved the changes to your course, you can then go back to add lesson content by editing the lesson.

For more detailed information about the course creation process, check out our help article on Building & Managing Courses.

Whether you want to make some quick edits, go back to finish a partially completed lesson, or add content to one created while editing a course, it's important to know how to make revisions to your existing lessons. First, you'll need to locate your lesson.

If the lesson is currently unassigned, you will be able to find it in the list of available lessons under the "Lessons" tab on your Courses Dashboard.

If the lesson has been assigned to a course, you will first need to select the course in the list under the "Courses" tab on your Courses Dashboard.

Then locate the lesson within the selected course.

Once you have located the lesson, whether within your unassigned lessons list or within a course, clicking the lesson's name will take you to its info page.

At the top of the page you'll see the lesson's name. The lesson's status will always be indicated next to its title. A grey dot indicates an Unpublished lesson, while a green dot indicates one that is Published.

When a lesson has been added to one of your courses, clients will only be able to see it while it is Published. Note that a lesson may be unpublished even if the course to which it is assigned is published. You can easily change the status of a lesson using the "Actions" button at the top of the page. Unpublished lessons will have a "Publish" option in the drop-down.

While Published lessons will have an "Unpublish" option.

Use this status to control your clients' access to lessons within your courses. If ever you need to remove a lesson to make updates, simply unpublish it. When the lesson is ready to go, switch it back to published!

Beneath the lesson title you will see the Customer Messages section, with a list of any messages your clients have sent you regarding the lesson, and the lesson content section, with any video, text, or photos you have chosen to include.

To edit any non-video content, click the "Actions" button at the top of the page, then select "Edit Lesson" from the drop-down menu.

That will open the Edit Lesson page, with all of the same fields as those found on the New Lesson page, discussed in an earlier section of this guide. Make any desired changes to the title or content fields, then select the "Save Changes" button to save the updates to your lesson and return to the lesson page.

To delete your lesson, select "Delete" from the "Actions" button drop-down at the top of the page.

A small pop-up will then appear, prompting you to confirm your choice. Select "Continue" to delete the lesson or click "Cancel" to return to the lesson page.

Many students find it helpful when video content is included to help demonstrate the topics discussed in a lesson. You can easily add a video to any lesson from its information page. As discussed in the previous section of this guide, first locate the lesson you want to add the video to, either with its assigned course or in your unassigned lesson list, then select its name.

Lessons without any video content will display with an "Upload Video" section just above any written lesson content. Drag a video file into the "Drag & Drop" field or select "Browse" to open a file selection window.

Once you have selected a video file it will begin uploading. The upload progress will display in a bar within the video upload section of the page. Click the progress bar at any time to cancel the upload.

To ensure the file gets added to your lesson properly, remain on the lesson page while the upload is in progress. When the upload is complete, the file will display in green. Click the "X" icon at the right side of the green bar to remove the upload.

Shortly after the upload is completed the system will begin converting the file to streaming format. This can take a few minutes. Note that to check the progress and see whether your video is ready you will need to either refresh the page or navigate to another page then come back.

When the video is ready it will display in a video player format. To begin video playback, select the large play button in the centre. Other playback controls can be found at the bottom of the player. These are the same format and playback options that your clients will see when accessing the lesson through their Client Portal account.

To remove a video from your course, click the "Remove Video" button located at the top-right corner of the video display.

A pop-up will then display, asking you to confirm your decision. Select "Continue" to remove the video or "Cancel" to go back.

Looking for more information on using courses to provide online content for your clients? Check out our other available help articles on this topic: