Transcripts
1. Introduction: Welcome to the digital
workbook class. In this class, I'm going
to teach you how to create your own interactive
digital workbook that lives on the cloud and
how to do that for free. I'm Veronika and
I've been working in the online education
space for years now. And I have created tons
of educational products. Workbooks are one
of my favorites. I'm combining my background in education and my passion
for digital tools to make things super easy for people
who teach and learn online in case you aren't sure what
workbook is in this context, it is simply a teaching tool. It is a document that
you create that helps people achieve a goal
or finish a project. The process for
creating a workbook I'm going to teach here
is super easy. It cannot be easier, but it's also very powerful. You are going to
only use one tool, which is Google Docs. And you don't need any
other skills other than the basics of working with a text document like Typing
and copying and pasting text. This class is perfect for educators, coaches,
course creators. It doesn't matter if you
teach one-on-one small groups or if you teach at scale and to teach
thousands of people, you will find this useful. You will also find this
useful for creating any Google Document,
not just workbooks. So I hope you are excited
and let's get started.
2. Class project: For this class, you
are going to create your own digital workbook
as a class project. So what we aren't
going to do is we will first write all of our content, which is very simple, is just the questions
and action items. And then we will turn this
into a digital workbook, into something that is useful, easy to use, and pretty. The workbook that I want you to create should be sure
just five to ten pages. And I want you to include
a table of contents, a few questions for
people to answer, and if you action items
for them to check up, just so I can see
that you can do it. And the rest depends on your creativity
and on your topic. As far as the topic,
I want you to choose something that you
already teach or something that you are
really excited about and know a lot about that you
want to share with others, but you don't need to decide. Just now, we will come back to how to choose the
topic later in the class.
3. My workbook philosophy: Workbooks are my
favorite kind of educational products
because it's active learning inner product. What I mean by that is that you aren't just
sharing theory, but you are providing
space for people to learn. You as the educator, just provide the prompts, questions or exercises
and action items. And the student is the one
who does the heart work, because that's how people learn fastest and
most effectively. I go into much more detail about my workbook
philosophy and how to organize the workbook from the educational
perspective in my class, workbooks one-on-one, which
is about printable workbooks. But the whole first part is
about workbooks in general. So if you are really
interested in this topic and want
to dive deeper, I would encourage you
to watch that class. But if you just want to create
a digital workbook, fast, stay here because I will have a lesson
about how to choose the topic and how to think about the workbook
in this class as well.
4. Why Google docs: Before I figured
out that I could create workbooks in Google Docs, I would use PDF and
it was a nightmare. Fires would get lost. Answers will then get. It was just messing
with Google Docs. Creating a workbook is
as easy as creating a document and everything
gets saved automatically. And with a few tricks that I
will show you in this class, you can make it look great too. Once you create the workbook, it's super easy to
share it with people. And it doesn't matter if
you share it just with one person or a with an
unlimited number of people. So if you teach online courses, you can share it with a lot of people and each of them can have their own copy of the workbook and
work on their own. And if you teach one-on-one, you can share the document with the client and work on
it at the same time, see all the changes and
give them feedback.
5. Narrow down your topic: Now let's finally talk about what to include in the workbook. So like I said before, the workbook content
should be super simple. But that's actually
the hard part because it is harder
to create a complex, overwhelming workbook then
to create a simple one. But the simple one is much more effective than
the complex one. Yes. It's all a bit counterintuitive. If you haven't watched my other class about workbooks
or even if you have, I have a few reminders for you that I want you to remember. First, workbook is called
a workbook for a reason. It's for people to work in
on a include action items, prompt questions, exercises, and don't include theory
unless necessary. Second, keep your writing and thinking process and to our
design process separated. First thing about what you wanted to include
in the workbook. Organize your content
and write it down into a document without thinking
about how it's going to look. And only then, once
you are ready, go into designing the workbook. And third, focus on
one simple topic. So let me give you an example. Let's say I want to create
a class about workbooks, how to create a workbook. But that is a big topic and I've been doing
this for years. I have a lot of opinions,
tools, experiences. So my class could take like 6 h and I would
totally overwhelm you. And you wouldn't
be able to create the workbook in the end anyway. So what I'm doing instead is I chose one simple thing
that I want you to do, that I know that you can do, let's say an hour, which is creating digital
workbook in Google Docs. So this is my topic. Once I have my topic
and my target audience, I can break the topic down. I can think about the
questions that I want you to answer before you start
creating the workbook. And then give you the
action items so that you can actually finish the project. So this is all
becoming a bit matter. But now I want to download
the workbook that comes along with this
class and we will get started thinking
about your topic. When you take a look
inside the workbook that I created for you for this class. You can see that
the first exercise is about your workbook brief. I want you to write down
your topic in general. You're working title and
maybe take some notes on what your thoughts
are at this moment. Then you have the
questions I want you to answer before you get started
developing the workbook. So here you can again, work on your own and think about the purpose
of your workbook, your ideal student,
and the outcome. What is the one thing
you want them to be able to do once they
finish the workbook. So write down all the
ideas that you have. Think again about my example
that I gave you before. The brooch topic is workbooks, but I narrowed it down into creating a digital
workbook in Google Docs or creating a printable workbook in Google Slides, and so on. Think about what this may be
when it comes to your topic. Write down your ideas and then choose your favorite
idea and try to down, this is how you
decide on the topic.
6. Write your content: So now you should have
the general topic, but also the very specific topic and the one thing you want
people to accomplish. So this is the project
or the process you will guide people through
in your workbook. So what A12 to do
now is to create a new Google Document
and brainstorm the questions someone needs to answer to get started
with the project. And then also brainstorm all the different small
steps they need to take. And really check back with the one thing you want them
to do so that you don't go too broad and you
don't start including all the other things that
you are excited to share, but that aren't relevant to this specific project
you want them to do. So again, when we take
a look at my document, I'm keeping my workbook
super simple here because I don't want to
overwhelm you or distract you. In your case, it can
be even simpler. It can be charged to five
to ten questions you want people to answer and
if you action items, you want them to take. And I'm also including a
brainstorming exercise. You don't have to do that, but if you want to learn it, you can include
that one as well. So now let's go and
create the content. And I will see you back here. Once you have the content and we can start designing
the workbook.
7. Design the workbook: In this lesson, we
aren't going to start designing the workbook. Now I have all the content
and in Google doc, but although I will be creating the workbook in the same
software in Google Docs. I don't want to use the
same document because it just makes things
more organized and a lot easier if you keep
the contents separated and if you create a new document
for the workbook itself. So I will go to File New and
create a blank document. And now what I will do, I will take part by part, copied into the new Document
and design it in there. So the first thing I want
to show you how to design the questions in
a way that makes it easy for people to fill in
8. Add questions: So if I want to show you the
not so ideal way to do this, but some people do
what I have seen as the just click
Enter a few times, which create some space here
for people to write in. This is not good
because when people start typing and you were here
and then they click Enter, everything else moves and
it all just gets messed up. Another thing that I
have seen that I don't recommend is inserting
underscore to create, sorry, I think like a line. This is not good and
this type of software because when people started typing, again, everything moves. It just doesn't make
a lot of sense. So let me just delete this and show you a different
way to do this. So I will ignore the titles
are on the headings. We're now and just
concentrate on the questions to keep it easier. In the first part, I have three questions and I want
to have them on one page. So the way I do it is I
use a table for this. I go to Insert and Table. And because I have
three questions, I need six rows. I always use one part of the question and one leave
blank for people to fill in. So I will questions from
here, this one blank. Leave this one blind, and do the semicolon. Now the idea here is that people will write into
these blank boxes. And my recommendation here
is to always give people a little bit more
space than you would think that they need.
For other topic. They probably don't need
more than one line, but I will give them
more space anyway. The way I do it is instead of, let's say clicking Enter, which would create a lot
of formatting problems. Later, I grab this
line and more red. And if I want to make this box the same size as the first
one to keep them consistent, would I do is I click
into the first one. Go to table options row, and see if the minimum
row I than I click into the second one and a check this box and it should
give me the same size. If not, I can just write it here and it will work
the same way here. But in fact, I think that for the nodes pupil anecdote,
little bit more space. So I will just drag it here and give them a
little bit more space. And I just want to make sure
I'm not clicking Enter here. Because if I don't ever
they click inside this box, it will always take it down to the first-line so they can start typing in the first page. Now I will click under the box, click Control Enter
to create a new page. Let me see what
else I have here. In the second section, I have several questions
of different kind. I don't think I'll put
them all on one page. And this last one is
brainstorming questions. So I will use different
solution for this one. For the first one, I think people will need
a little bit more space. And the second one, we have the instructions and
then six short questions. So I will keep these
two separated. Let me just show you who would
able to do with the rest. One called been the question. Insert a table here. And in Zara's my
question here and again, probably if people are
as a bit more space, right-click under the table. And I want this
on the same page. So here I have the
instructions and then I have six questions. I will own the numbers because everything that you format
in the content document, it makes it really messy
in the workbook documents, so I try not to Format
anything in here. Now what I will do
for this question is that instead of putting the blank boxes
below the questions, I will create two columns. So I have the instructions
and six quizzes. I will insert a table where
Seminoles, but two columns. You can go with the
instructions here, put them in the first box. And now I selected
the whole first row and right-click and merge cells. And to now this column will
be for the restaurants. And the second one
are the answers. I love Charles, grab
these one-by-one and insert them
into this document. To now, to give
them a little bit, Morris pays Charles
drag-and-drop this line. And I think it looks good. Maybe for the last three they may need a little
bit more. Spain's. So this is what I can do. And now I can make this one
maybe a little bigger to. I will click under the table and click Control Enter again. To get on the new page. There, we will put the
brainstorming question
9. Add a brainstorming list: In this case, because I want
people to brainstorm ideas. I don't want to limit their
space so much because I, I don't know if they will
go crazy and write down like three pages of ADLs
or just a few ones. So I will use something
different here. I'll copy and this
parent put it here. And now when I say
brainstorm ideas, I will write down some
placeholder texts. Let's say ID L1. And then I say to add more and turn this
into embolic list. So I just selected and click
by articulates to your. Now people can go here and
to replace the text idea, one idea to with
their own ideas. And when they click, they can just keep
adding more ideas. But now when I go back, once they brainstorm
all the ideas, I want them to write
down the one thing. And I want this question
to be on the next page. I'll show you what I mean. I will give him this question. And here in this document, I will go to the
last bullet point to the end of the line, and I will click Enter, Enter and draw Enter to get to the next stage where I
will insert my question. Now, what happens here is that no matter how
far they will go, This next question
will always be on a new page and everything
else in the workbook, even if they write 2.5
pages of text here, everything else will
keep its structure. I will show you what I mean. Let me just grab this list here. This one makes sense, but I just wanted to show you
how we do our eggs. So let's say I go crazy and
brainstorm a lot of ideas. So I have to add 2.5 pages of ads been this one is
still on the next page. Let me remove this again. Anytime you need to undo
something in Google Docs, you can just click Control Z, like in most other
editing softwares. Where are the one thing? Maybe we need more space to? And finally, we have checklists, and these are really easy
to design in Google Docs. Let me show you how
10. Add a checklist: So far in the checklist, I can just simply
copy of the list. Control enter to get
to the next page. Select the lines and colleague checklist.
Extra line here. And now when I'm making
this modal bigger, when people check these, all, you can see that it
gets striked through and people can always
see where they are. I have one or more
checklist here. I will do the same. Copy it. New page, turn it
into a checklist. Now, the checkboxes aren't
just useful for a checklist. You can also use them
for any action items. So when I go back here, let's say I want you to do something
outside of the world book. So you have used the word book to brainstorm your
ideas and come up with your one thing that you want to focus on
in your workbook. And I want you to go to the class discussion and
share your ideas with us. So I can write it here
and quick checklist, and it will turn
into an action item. So you can write your idea here and then see
if the action item, and when you do
it, check it out. This is really useful because
often you want to ask students to do things
outside of the workbook
11. Insert the headings: Okay. One last name that we need to put into the workbook
Document or the titles. So I will take them from
here and copy them here. And every time I copy a tidal is selected and make sure I turn
it into an actual title. I will use heading tool to. Now to insert the title here I need to click Enter and go back. Backspace that ink to. Now, you can see once you
have the headings here, that when you click
on this icon, you should see in the
workbook outline that takes you to the specific
page in the workbook, which can be really useful. But we will also be using
table of contents for this
12. Make it look pretty: Now that we have
the row workbook, we have all our content here. We want to make this look a
bit better or a lot better. So the first thing I want to
change is this default font. Here. You can change this to your brand font or some
other phone that you like. I'll make this bold at now to make all the
headings match, I will go to an
ink to and update, adding two to match. And you can see it lives
in the same everywhere. And I also want to have
the same font here. So I won't change
it again and again, go to normal and
updates to match. Maybe make it a little bigger. And don't forget to
update to match a river. Now, I will see if I didn't
mess I'm the formatting. Okay, I can see that I have K. The rest looks good. And now let me add
some colors to this. When we add colors
to the workbook, it doesn't jars to help us make it look a little more exciting, but it also actually help us
where the user experience to separate the questions,
prolonged the answers. So let me go to File and
you're Page Setup, page color. And I want to choose
some really light color. You can also choose
a custom color, like a very light shade
of your brand color, for example, I won't go away. Light blue. It looks, I think it looks good. It's very light. There is still enough contrast to read this, which
is important. And to now what I'll do is I will change the
colors of the boxes. I want people to
write into white. So I will click inside the box, go to Background Color, and change it too wide. I want to appeal the action
by again clicking here. And I will pass cultural
lie to align to the same. Here. Here. It won't work, but that doesn't learn here. And here we have the checklists. So that's OK. And now
you can see it already. This looks more like something that you
should write into, but we will make
this even better. I don't like these
delight borders here. So what I will do here is I'll
all side the whole table. Click on this arrow right here. All Borders go to border color and make it exactly the same
color as the background. And now you can
see it disappeared and it looks a bit better. So I won't do the same
here and drill why? You burst like this. You maybe want to keep them
a little bit more separated. So I will select T8, go to these horizontal lines
and make them a bit thicker. Yes, this looks better. But I still would like to make the questions look
more or likely questions. So first, I will make them war. And one more thing that
I like to do to make the questions send
out a little bit more as I insert emojis. So let me go here. You can insert anything
I think in bulk makes sense here and
it looks kind of cute. So I will end Zara did to
all my questions here, or at least the main questions. And always use the same emoji
so that people can see, read the questions are
13. Insert links: This already looks a
lot better, doesn't it? Inserting links into a Google
Document is very simple. Let me just grow here, create a new page that I call. Let's say resources
will be the title. And I can link to and the
external side article, video, anything like that. Just by selecting this clicking, insert links and
pasting the link here. Actually some random,
random line from here. But what you can also do, you can link to any
place in this document. So let's say I want to link back to the workbook
brave son or reason. I did here. Click Insert link and go
to headings and marks. This way, it will take people back to any link inside
the same document. Or I can even take them to
another Google Document. We just need to make
sure that you are sharing it with the same people. But the way you do it
is exactly in the same. You just choose the
Google document here and it will take them to
another Google Document. Or one last thing that you
can do if you want to, let's say bring them here. But this isn't really a title. You can insert a bookmark. Insert mark. Can see we have
the bookmark here. And now I can link
to this place, insert links, headings
and bookmarks. And you can see the
bookmark appeared here. And it will take
me to this place. So this can also be useful
14. Table of contents: Now I think it's also
always useful to have a table of contents to help people navigate
inside of the workbook. And it also looks better, especially if you don't have a title page
or a cover page, which I don't really recommend. Or for workbooks that are
created in Google Docs. To create a new blank page. And the beginning
of your workbook just go to the very beginning. Click there, and then
click Control Enter. So I will just grab the
name of my workbook. Here, it into a tidal. Make sure it's the same font. And then I will simply go to
Insert Table of Contents. And everything happens
automatically and you can just click on any heady and it will take future the right
place in the document. And also when you click this, you can always keep it updated, even if the pages chance
15. Add your branding: So what do your thing? I think the workbook
already looks really good. And one more thing
that we maybe want to add is our branding is a good idea to use the header to insert maybe the name of the workbook or your
name or your logo. When you go to Insert
headers and footers, other you can right here. Narrow beam, make it too wide. So I'm but it doesn't
stand out so much. And we can also
make a different on the first page to only
show on the next pages. I can also add my logo
here by inserting image. So this is my fictional logo. Then it'll make it small, right? Align. And I don't like that. It's calling attention
so much when is black. So I will go to Image Options, very Color and change
it to, to white. Now it looks better. And I can also insert a footer. So again, this can be copyright, this can be your name, or this can be
maybe page numbers. Although this is
super important. And in a Google
Document workbook, unless you have really
huge number of pages, I will try it, this one. And it'd be, again, make it white and make
it a little the same, a river. And I'm done.
16. Sharing the workbook the right way: The last thing that you
really needs to get ride is to share it with
people the right way, which is what we are
going to do now. The way you share in this
workbook is you click share. And if you only want to share
it with a specific person, you can write their email, you, or you can share it
with a lot of people. And they will all have their
own copy of this workbook, which means that
any changes they make only then will
be able to see them. And this workbook,
they'll stay the same unless you
make the changes. I will change restricted
to anyone with the link. And make sure here is
jugar and copied the link. Now, when people open this link, this is what they
will see if they aren't signed and to
their Google account, they will still
see the workbook. They will just not
be able to edit it, but when they sign in, they will be able to go to
File and make their own copy. And 12 thing that I
strongly recommend is that you share this
link with a friend first. Make sure they can
find the document, they can open it
and they can make their own copy and
also make them try to actually fill it in end because other people may see
things that you miss. So always, always
test the workbook
17. Outro: Let's it, you have made it. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you have your
workbook finished, and I also hope you will share
it in the class project. You can share the link
to the Google Docs or you can export it as a PDF. So I can just take a look at it or you can take screenshots. Just show us what
you have created. And most importantly, share
it with your clients, students, and keep
experimenting. Because what I showed you here, this is just the beginning. And with all the
new tools coming, maybe you can see some other cool tools
in Google Docs that I haven't included because things are evolving really
fast right now. So please take this as the beginning and
keep experimenting. And I hope to see
you in another class
Veronika M, Online education strategist
