Most people that are creating online courses these days follow a similar format. They create video, audio and text based content and sell it. However, Marc Grabanski of FrontEndMasters.com is doing something unique...and a little crazy. In this episode Marc talks about where he got started and how he's able to create video courses from workshops that are done live with audience members in the studio as well as having people online watching the live stream. This is no easy task and Marc shares his struggles and successes in this process. My company has extensive video experience so I was naturally interested in how he pulls of recording the teacher as well as their computer which shows slides and real-time examples of the code they are creating. Marc's setup is pretty impressive and while it's been a process to get to the point he's at, it was inspiring to hear that he didn't give up.
Notes from the interview
- His background is in services, open source, user interface development
- He spoke at a lot of conferences
- He uses his blog to teach
- Marc got started running conferences at Google headquarters and other places
- After that he started doing workshops so they were smaller and more intimate and the students could learn better
- The workshops were recorded screencasts with just himself in the room but he want an audience
- After a while, people wanted to watch live online with live-streaming
- Marc record the teacher with a video camera as well as their slides and computer screen
- He plans for things to go wrong and has backups in place