Lesson Editor
As a creator, the majority of your time before your program launches will be spent in the Lesson Editor. Here you can create and edit lessons for all of your courses. You can drag and drop lessons in the left side outline to reorder them. When you choose to view your lesson by either clicking the view link at the bottom or the lesson title in the top breadcrumb, what you see will be exactly what your student sees. When you first create a lesson it will be in draft mode. Remember to select " Save" and "Publish" your lesson to make it live. Students can only see lessons and courses that you have published.
Once you publish a lesson, your students will have access to it if they purchased your course. You can always go back and modify the lessons even if they are already published. Any changes you make after a lesson is published, will automatically appear for students who previously purchased your program. Just remember to click on "Save" and "Publish" every time you modify your lessons, in order for your students to automatically receive the changes. The same applies to courses: once you publish a course, you can always go back and add more lessons. Your current students will automatically see the new lessons appear the next time they log into your program.
At the top of the edit interface you can adjust the lesson title, author display (if you have added additional admins - see Author Help), and learning objective (summary appearing at the top of your Lesson and on Course detail pages).
The WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text editor allows you to format your content without worrying about learning HTML. You can upload images to display in your lesson by clicking the "Insert Image" link in the formatting bar. We also provide integration with Unsplash so that you can search for free images to use directly inside your lessons.
Below the lesson text, you can choose lesson type, set a number of points for your student to receive upon completing the lesson and view basic lesson stats (number of views, bookmarks, and percentage who've completed the lesson).
You can create different types of lessons (text, video, audio lessons, etc) and upload content to your lessons through the section "Lesson Type Attachments" located at the bottom of the page, under the text box.
Near this section, you have the option to change the Thumbnail Image of your lesson. Simply select "Choose Thumbnail Image" and upload a picture from your device. This thumbnail image will appear on the clickable lesson card in the lesson list on your course pages. We recommend uploading a picture at least 280px wide.
Even though uploading a thumbnail image for your lessons is optional, it is recommended since it can visually invite your students to open the lessons and make them more recognizable to the students' eyes - especially if your course is very long.
Lesson Release Settings
Requires Unlock - Guide Student Progression
By default, students can access all lessons in your course and complete them in any order they choose. Once students complete a lesson, Heights Platform will automatically direct them to the next one in the sequence you've set, however, the student is free to browse another lesson further along in the course by default.
If you would like to ensure that your students complete a certain lesson before progressing to another, or to ensure that lessons are completed in order, you can use the " Requires Unlock" option available in the release settings at the bottom of the lesson edit view.
Checking "Requires Unlock" will require your student to complete the previous lesson in the sequence before they are able to view or complete the lesson that requires unlock. Checking "Requires Unlock" on the first lesson in your course will have no effect because there is no lesson before it to complete. Remember you can drag your lessons in the outline to reorder their sequence in your course.
Release Day - Drip Your Lesson Content
In the lesson release settings at the bottom of the lesson edit view, you can also choose to enter a release day for the lesson. This feature allows you to drip feed lesson content to students. For example, if you enter the number 7 as the lesson release day, the lesson will become available to students 7 days after they join your program. You can use this feature to help guide students through your program more slowly and keep fresh new content coming to them based on their individual signup time.
To learn more about the different types of Lessons themselves, see our guide on Lessons.
Publishing Lessons
Release and publish settings at the bottom of a lesson's edit page
When you create a lesson it will first appear in draft mode. Lessons in draft mode are only visible to program admins. Once you have finished adding content to your lesson and are ready for your students to see it, you must select the publish option at the bottom of the lesson edit view.
If your course containing the lesson is in draft mode then even though your lesson is published, students will still not be able to view it because the course is hidden in draft mode.
Embedding Third-Party Multimedia Content
In the toolbar of your lesson editor next to the 'insert image' button, there is an embed button that will allow you to paste in a third-party embed code to add multimedia content to your lesson. Use this to embed a Google Form or Typeform, a spreadsheet from Airtable, a Google Doc, learning content from Articulate Storyline, quizzes from Riddle, and more!
The content pasted in the embed window will be embedded at the position of your editor's cursor before you clicked the embed button, or directly at the top of your content if you did not position the cursor beforehand.
NOTE: If you want to add video, audio, or a download file, use the respective lesson type instead! While it would technically be possible to embed more video content using this embed feature, it can create an inconsistent experience for your students.