Brian is a scientist-turned-education technology executive. He has founded and led technology companies for more than 20 years and uses his analytical mind and experimental approach to spur growth in small and medium businesses and start-ups. He is passionate about using technology to enhance access to lifelong learning.
Accessibility should be a top priority for any course content creator. Accessible content helps everyone access and engage with your lessons, whether you’re teaching in-person or online. That allows you to reach more learners and offer more engaging educational experiences.
When you hear the word “accessible,” you may think of ways to make a building or website more user-friendly. This may include adding wheelchair ramps or using easy-to-read color combinations. When it comes to course creation, accessibility has much broader applications. It’s about supporting every potential student regardless of their physical, cognitive, technological, situational, or socioeconomic challenges.
Your program couldn’t exist without your instructors. You can have the best marketing, the simplest registration system, and the most interesting course offerings, but it’s teachers who make your classes possible. In this post, we’ll explore how to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week to show appreciation and respect to all educators.
This year, Teacher Appreciation Week is May 8-12, 2023, which makes it a great time to show your instructors how much you appreciate them. Saying “thank you” is especially important right now. Many educators have had to navigate new ways of teaching and extra challenges over the last few years.
Teacher appreciation doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. Sincerity and thoughtfulness go a long way. We’ve put together a list of ways your adult or community education program or arts program can celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week.
ChatGPT might just be the biggest game changer in technology since the iPhone. Developed by the software company OpenAI, ChatGPT is a chatbot designed to produce language that sounds human. Users interact with the bot by typing questions, and the bot responds with answers that sound like they could have been written by a human.
Not only is the new chatbot an impressive step forward for artificial intelligence, it has also elicited controversy and strong opinions. Many who work in academia, education, or writing-heavy fields worry that the AI model presents copyright concerns, plagiarism issues, and a move away from the human element in writing.
Ultimately, ChatGPT is a tool. We’ll take a look at how you might use it to write course descriptions, titles, and other content, as well as the potential pitfalls to be aware of if you do.
Your nonprofit organization makes a big difference for the people and communities you serve. You want to impact as many people as you can, but your reach can only stretch as far as your budget will allow. Fortunately, there are valuable sources of funding for nonprofits if you know where to look.
Finding nonprofit funding sources takes time—an asset already in short supply for many programs. That’s why we’ve rounded up some of the best ways for nonprofits to make and save money. Many of these resources can also help introduce more people to your mission so you can grow your support network.
Sometimes, a little extra boost is all it takes to spark a big change. That was the impetus behind CourseStorm’s SPARKed Grant Program, launched last year with the goal of awarding up to $10,000 in micro-grants to selected winners. Any nonprofit or for-profit educational organization or business providing learning opportunities to the public was eligible to apply.
CourseStorm received many strong applications from worthy organizations, making the selection process quite challenging. In the end, we chose eight applicants from across the United States, ranging from an aviation training provider to youth arts organizations, as the recipients of our inaugural SPARKed Grant Program. The SPARKed Grant will provide all of these organizations with funds to develop, market, and provide new programs or expand their existing offerings to reach more people.
“We have an amazing group of organizations selected to receive the SPARKed Grant. These programs already have such a positive impact on their communities and we’re so excited to help them reach their goals,” said Nic Lyons, Marketing Manager of CourseStorm. Given the company’s roots as a startup, we know that even a small financial boost can make a big difference for organizations like these and help them make an even bigger impact. Here’s a look at the first-ever SPARKed Grant Winners.
The labor market changes so quickly that it can be hard to keep up with trends. These days, workers are switching occupations faster and more often than ever before. Forbes even renamed The Great Resignation “The Great Talent Reshuffle.” In this environment, the workforce training programs trending for 2023 are the ones that will help workers gain the needed skills for in-demand jobs.
Knowing what kinds of classes people are looking for can boost your enrollment and help your learners move toward meaningful career growth. We’ve identified some in-demand workforce training programs that you can add or expand in 2023.
Costs are rising everywhere. That means buying materials for your classes, paying instructors, and just keeping the lights on is more expensive than it used to be. Unless you have an endowment or other major funding source, and in many cases even if you do, it might be time to increase class fees to help bridge the gap.
Knowing you need to raise your prices is one thing. Actually making the change is another. You might be worried about upsetting students, or fear that raising your prices will make classes less accessible.
Those are reasonable concerns. But, in the long run, raising prices really can be in everyone’s best interest. We’ll show you why and how to raise your prices while keeping students happy.
CourseStorm was proud to announce the SPARKed Grant Program, a grant-based program awarding $10,000 in micro grants for education programs between $500 and up to $2,000 each. The application was open to any educational organization or business providing learning opportunities to the public, including for-profit programs. The deadline for applications was December 31st and awards will be announced in February 2023.
Informal learning rarely gets access to the kinds of industry-wide data that other sectors of education use to guide decision making. We don’t think that’s fair. After all, non-traditional education providers are helping people grow and creating opportunities for students of all ages. Why shouldn’t they have access to informal learning insights, much like higher ed and K-12 programs?
To help close this information gap, we at CourseStorm have compiled some of what we’ve learned from facilitating nearly 1 million class registrations to unearth patterns and strategies that you can apply to your programs. We’re calling it the State of Informal Learning Report 2022, or SOIL for short.
Prices may be rising everywhere, but your mission hasn’t changed. You still want to provide personal enrichment and quality education opportunities to people in your community and beyond. That means you need to offer affordable classes while supporting the financial stability and long-term success of your program.
Achieving that balance might not be as difficult as you think. To start, expand your thinking beyond the list price of the course. We’ll share some tools and strategies you can use to keep classes affordable for the greatest number of students even if you do need to raise prices.
