Justin Ferriman

14 Responses

1. Hi, I have done several courses on codecademy, I liked the gamification the best, that you could get points and badges it was kind of nice. Also the way course texts were written, in an informal and fun way, it also helped. I am working in elearning industry myself, but mainly for corporate clients and custom content, so it was a good break to take a fun course about web development :). Good luck with Learndash, inspiring interview!

2. eLearning is a topic that is very intriguing to me. I have actually built an online course (couple years back) that is still up and running. I used a 3rd party plugin for the quiz aspect and built out all of the content using hidden content and a member plugin. It works….but doesn’t look like it would be nearly as intuitive as LearnDash.

   The last online course I took was for real estate and it was very out-dated. It made the experience even less exciting, using a boring and plain “dashboard” and full screen width for a short question and answer test. It would be nice for some of these older technologies to update to something as well built as LearnDash.

   Thanks for the awesome interview Justin!

3. First, congrats on your current course Grant! I know how time consuming getting all of that set-up can be!

   Funny you should mention the out-of-date real estate course. I recently wrote an article about the importance of keeping a course current (especially images, styles, etc.). There is a general misconception that creating elearning is a “one-and-done” process. When it starts to look ‘dated’, people begin to question the accuracy of the content.

   Happy to hear you have Project Panorama and are enjoying it, it really is a rockstar plugin.

4. Isn’t it funny how just a few gaming elements like points & badges make the online learning experience just a bit more enjoyable? I’ve taken a few courses at codecademy as well and think their set-up is quite slick.

   The elearning industry is a great place to be as all indicators are pointing towards growth. I cut my teeth working for the corporate clients; I know how difficult (frustrating at times) it can be! Keep fighting the good fight 🙂

5. Awesome interview! Thanks for getting Justin on the show. LearnDash is an awesome product and Justin and Kloe run a great business.

   Regarding e-learning experiences, I took numerous online courses during college, have engaged in many different online training courses for learning web development and also developed multiple training sites for a previous employer, long before I discovered WP. Those were either custom PHP sites or using Moodle.

   So as far as what I like:

   – I’m a huge fan of e-courses which are self sufficient, as in they don’t require physical or external resources.

   – I’m also a huge fan of e-learning applications which are very interactive and push the limits of what is possible to experience and learn through a digital medium. Basically stuff that goes beyond simple multiple choice question forms but rather creative interfaces that require unique input or actions from the user (like Codecademy’s coding lessons which require a user to write their own code). There are so many hands-on occupations that just can’t be learned by answering True/False questions but today, creative visual solutions are making e-learning an option where it wasn’t before.

   – Courses with a really good “carrot” at the end. In particular I like the ones which allow for easy sharing. A good example, although somewhat different, is Smarterer which has awesome profile pages where users can show off their scores like this: http://smarterer.com/brashrebel

   Things I don’t like:
   – Expensive, proprietary, inflexible solutions.
   – Clunky UIs that remind me of the antiquated crap I had to use in college.
   – Steep learning curves for both instructors and students.
   – An inability or difficulty maintaining visual cohesion between e-learning and the rest of a site.

   Those are just a few. Great question and great giveaway.

   I also second the recommendation to get Ross on the show. He’s a wiz.

6. Hi Kyle-

   Thanks for the comment! I too like a little entertainment when taking an online course as there is nothing worse than taking a course that looks like a rehashed PowerPoint presentation. Too many “bells and whistles” though can be distracting and have the opposite effect.

   I am with you on the ‘clunky UI’ gripe. This is one of the many reasons why WordPress is a perfect choice for online course delivery. Old platforms like Moodle haven’t changed much in terms of UI standpoint since their inception (for both the learner and admin).

   Thanks again!

7. I absolutely loved getting a certificate at the end of Troy’s course that I did. That’s one thing I really want to get right with my own courses that I want to run. I bought LearnDash ages ago – I need to create a course. 🙂

8. Great interview, I really enjoyed it. I’ve played a bit with Learndash in demo in the early days and really like it! I now have a client site to implement a learning system on, but the client is involved with MyEdOnline and is wanting to use that – looks interesting, but targeted at schools, so not sure how this will work.

   Online learning is really a huge opportunity for the future and particularly for large geographically diverse countries like Australia, offers opportunities for remote communities to access quality learning material (subject to good internet access of course). It can be a great leveler.

   The best learning experience online I’ve had was with open2study.com, which is a based on Drupal CMS, not sure about the learning system. The layout is really clean and it has an excellent search function. The courses are drip fed and they have “live” ones linked to a particular time. Great content too.

   Of course, WP Elevation is great too, but I’m biased!

9. Thanks for the comment Jurgen! Open2Study has a nice look about it. You can tell that they put a lot of work into the site design – although they could use a bit of updating to make it mobile responsive 🙂

   Online learning certainly is ideal for large geographic areas like Australia. Heck, with an online course someone from the United States could technically take a course offered by an Australian institution; it really does break-down the barriers that have traditionally existed in education.

   Thanks again for stopping by and leaving your online course experience!

10. Hi Trisha-

    If you have some questions on ways to get started with your online course & LearnDash, I’d be happy to provide some guidance. Just open a forum thread from the LearnDash support site and I’ll keep an eye out for it!

11. Hi Troy, i really enjoy these podcast on my i Tunes, how to listen on Android? Link please add thank you

12. Check us out on Stitcher Amid – http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/troy-dean/wp-elevation – they have an app for Android too 🙂

13. Thanks Buddy… lovin it. Great stuff

14. Thanks! 🙂