Level Up Your Course Design with These Free Tools for Course Creation

Customising courses developed by Course Creator AI can significantly enhance the learning experience, making it more engaging and effective. One of the most impactful ways to achieve this is through high-quality images and videos. Visual elements like icons and infographics make content more appealing, simplify complex concepts, improve retention, and create more immersive learning environments.

In this blog, we’ll explore various free tools for course creation that you can use to add these visual enhancements to your training materials, ensuring that your learning materials are both informative and captivating.

Free Tools for Course Creation: 12 Free Stock Imagery Sites

Imagery is a great way to make your course content more engaging and memorable. Visual elements like photos, illustrations, and infographics help to break up text and keep learners interested, making the material more appealing and easier to digest. Imagery simplifies complex concepts, turning abstract ideas into concreate examples that are easier to understand and remember. Additionally, images evoke emotions and create more immersive learning experiences, reinforcing key messages and encouraging deeper connections with the material.

One of the best free tools for course creation are sites with free stock imagery. Here are 12 of our top picks:

1. Freepik: Choose from millions of stock photos, vectors, illustrations, and a wide variety of design resources.
2. Unsplash: Find artistic and high-quality landscape, lifestyle, and creative photography.
3. Pexels: Search for versatile images suitable for various projects, including business, technology, and nature.
4. Pixabay: Enjoy a library of over 1.7 million images that include illustrations, vectors, and digital art.
5. StockSnap: This site is best for fresh and high-quality photos, especially for modern, trendy, and lifestyle projects.
6. Burst (by Shopify): Find high-quality images for business, marketing, and e-commerce.
7. Reshot: Reshot is best for unique and non-stock images for creative and professional projects.
8. ISO Republic: Discover professional and high-resolution images for designers and creative professionals.
9. Negative Space: This site is best for artistic and creative photography with ample negative space for design projects.
10. Life of Pix: You can find stunning, high-resolution landscape and urban photography here.
11. Skitter Photo: Best for variety of categories including nature and travel photography.
12. Foodies Feed: Best for high-quality food photography.

By incorporating relevant and high-quality imagery into your learning materials, courses can become more dynamic, effective, and enjoyable for learners. AI Course Creator comes with a built-in image library that lets you browse and add free, high-quality images from popular online repositories without having to leave the platform. Can’t find the image you want? AI Course Creator also has an image generation feature that helps add detail to your prompt and creates unique and stunning images that go well with your course material.

5 Awesome Sites for Free Icons

Icons can enhance your training by providing visual cues that help people understand and remember information better. Plus, icons break up heavy text, making the content more engaging and less overwhelming. They’re great for crossing language barriers too, helping everyone get the main points, actions, and navigation, regardless of their language.

By using consistent and meaningful icons, training materials become more interactive and easier to follow, boosting the overall learning experience. Whether you’re highlighting steps in a process, representing ideas, or guiding learners through a module, icons add clarity, improve retention, and keep users interested. Here are a couple of sites that you can use as tools for course creation:

1. Flaticon: Choose from 16+ million diverse and high-quality icons for all types of design projects.
2. Icons8: Here, you can find high-quality icons with customisable options.
3. Noun Project: Explore over 5 million icons for educational and commercial use.
4. Material Icons (by Google): This site is best for clean, modern icons.
5. Icon Archive: Discover 800,000+ diverse icon styles for personal and commercial projects.

Free Tools for Infographic and Diagram Creation

Infographics and diagrams are great for explaining complex ideas in a more visual format, enhancing retention and recall, boosting engagement, catering to visual learning styles and reinforcing key information. Here are five fantastic free tools for course creation that can enhance your training materials with eye-catching visuals:

1. Diagrams.net: A powerful, free online tool for creating diagrams. It offers a wide range of templates and shapes, making it easy to design flowcharts, mind maps, and other diagrams. The tool is highly intuitive and supports collaboration, allowing multiple users to work on the same diagram simultaneously.
   
   Best For: Complex diagrams and flowcharts, collaborative projects.
2. Canva: A versatile design tool that provides users with a plethora of templates for creating infographics, presentations, posters, and more. Its drag-and-drop interface is user-friendly, and it offers a vast library of graphics, icons, and fonts. Canva also allows users to collaborate and share their designs easily.
   
   Best For: Infographics, posters, presentations, and social media graphics.
3. PowerPoint: While PowerPoint is widely known for its presentation capabilities, it also excels in creating diagrams and infographics. With its array of shapes, SmartArt graphics, and chart tools, you can design professional-looking visuals to enhance your training materials. Many users already have access to PowerPoint through their Microsoft Office subscription.
   
   Best For: Business diagrams, and process charts.
4. Google Slides: A free, web-based tool that’s part of the Google Workspace suite. Similar to PowerPoint, it’s excellent for creating presentations and diagrams. Google Slides offers a range of templates and shapes, and it supports real-time collaboration, making it a great choice for teams working together on training materials.
   
   Best For: Basic diagrams.
5. Lucidchart: An online diagramming application that enables users to create flowcharts, mind maps, and various diagrams with ease. It offers robust features, including data linking and integration with other tools like Google Drive and Slack. While it offers a free version, some advanced features are available with a paid subscription.
   
   Best For: Professional and technical diagrams, team collaboration.

Using free tools for course creation, you can create visually appealing and informative infographics and diagrams that will make your training materials more engaging and effective.

Screen Captures & Recordings on a Mac & PC

Sometimes the best way to demonstrate processes or provide visual examples is through screen captures and screen recordings; especially if you’re providing training on a certain application. They can clarify instructions, support self-paced learning, show real-time problem solving and boost learner retention.

How to Take Screen Captures

On Mac:

1. Capture Entire Screen:
   • Press Shift + Command (⌘) + 3.
   • The screenshot will be saved to your desktop.
2. Capture a Selected Portion:
   • Press Shift + Command (⌘) + 4.
   • Your cursor will change to a crosshair. Click and drag to select the area you want to capture, then release the mouse button.
   • The screenshot will be saved to your desktop.
3. Capture a Specific Window:
   • Press Shift + Command (⌘) + 4, then press the Spacebar.
   • Your cursor will change to a camera icon. Click on the window you want to capture.
   • The screenshot will be saved to your desktop.

On Windows:

1. Capture Entire Screen:
   • Press the Print Screen (PrtScn) key. This captures the entire screen and copies it to the clipboard.
   • Open an image editing program like Paint, paste the screenshot (Ctrl + V), and save the file.
2. Capture Active Window:
   • Press Alt + Print Screen (PrtScn). This captures the currently active window and copies it to the clipboard.
   • Open an image editing program like Paint, paste the screenshot (Ctrl + V), and save the file.
3. Capture Selected Portion (Windows 10 and later):
   • Press Windows + Shift + S.
   • Your screen will dim and your cursor will change to a crosshair. Click and drag to select the area you want to capture.
   • The screenshot will be copied to the clipboard. Open an image editing program like Paint, paste the screenshot (Ctrl + V), and save the file.

How to Take Screen Recordings

On Mac:

1. Using QuickTime Player:
   • Open QuickTime Player.
   • Go to File > New Screen Recording.
   • Click the record button. To capture the entire screen, click anywhere on the screen. To capture a selected portion, click and drag to select the area, then click Start Recording.
   • To stop recording, click the Stop button in the menu bar or press Command (⌘) + Control + Esc.
   • Save your recording by going to File > Save.
2. Using the Screenshot Toolbar (macOS Mojave and later):
   • Press Shift + Command (⌘) + 5 to open the screenshot toolbar.
   • Select either the Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion button.
   • Click Record to start recording.
   • To stop recording, click the Stop button in the menu bar or press Command (⌘) + Control + Esc.
   • The recording will be saved to your desktop.

On Windows:

1. Using the Game Bar (Windows 10 and later):
   • Press Windows + G to open the Game Bar.
   • Click the Record button in the Capture widget (or press Windows + Alt + R).
   • To stop recording, click the Stop button in the Game Bar or press Windows + Alt + R again.
   • The recording will be saved in the Videos > Captures folder.
2. Using PowerPoint:
   • Open PowerPoint and go to the slide where you want to add a screen recording.
   • Go to Insert > Screen Recording.
   • Select the area you want to record and click Record.
   • To stop recording, move your mouse to the top of the screen and click the Stop button.
   • The recording will be added to your slide. To save it separately, right-click the video and select Save Media as.

By following these simple steps, you can easily create screen captures and recordings on both Mac and PC, adding valuable visual content to your training materials.

Basic Video Editing on Mac or Windows

Using Mac iMovie:

1. Open iMovie:
   • Open the iMovie application from the Applications folder or Launchpad.
2. Create a New Project:
   • Click on Create New and select Movie.
3. Import Media:
   • Click on the Import Media button.
   • Select the video files you want to edit and click Import Selected.
4. Add Clips to the Timeline:
   • Drag and drop your video clips from the media browser into the timeline at the bottom of the screen.
5. Trim Clips:
   • Click on a clip in the timeline to select it.
   • Drag the edges of the clip to trim it to the desired length.
6. Split Clips:
   • Move the playhead (the white vertical line) to the point where you want to split the clip.
   • Right-click the clip and select Split Clip.
7. Add Transitions:
   • Click on the Transitions tab above the media browser.
   • Drag a transition effect between two clips in the timeline.
8. Add Titles:
   • Click on the Titles tab above the media browser.
   • Drag a title style onto the timeline and customize the text.
9. Add Music or Voiceover:
   • Click on the Audio tab to import music or record a voiceover.
   • Drag the audio file to the timeline and adjust its length to match your video.
10. Export Your Video:
    • Click on the Share button in the top right corner.
    • Select File and choose your export settings.
    • Click Next, name your file, and choose a save location, then click Save.

Using Windows:

1. Open Windows Video Editor (Part of the Photos App in Windows 10 and Later):
   • Open the Photos app from the Start menu.
   • Click on New Video and select New Video Project.
2. Name Your Project:
   • Enter a name for your video project and click OK.
3. Import Media:
   • Click on the Add button and select From this PC to import your video files.
4. Add Clips to the Storyboard:
   • Drag and drop your video clips from the project library onto the storyboard at the bottom of the screen.
5. Trim Clips:
   • Click on a clip in the storyboard to select it.
   • Click the Trim button above the storyboard.
   • Adjust the sliders to select the portion of the clip you want to keep and click Done.
6. Split Clips:
   • Select a clip in the storyboard.
   • Click the Split button above the storyboard.
   • Move the playhead to the point where you want to split the clip and click Done.
7. Add Transitions:
   • Click on the Motion button above the storyboard.
   • Choose a motion effect and click Done.
8. Add Text:
   • Select a clip and click the Text button above the storyboard.
   • Choose a text style, enter your text, and adjust its position and duration. Click Done.
9. Add Music or Narration:
   • Click on the Background Music button to add built-in music or Custom Audio to add your own audio files or record narration.
   • Adjust the audio duration to match your video.
10. Export Your Video:
    • Click the Finish Video button in the top right corner.
    • Select the video quality and click Export.
    • Choose a save location, name your file, and click Export.

By following these steps, you can perform basic video editing on both Mac and PC, enhancing your training materials with polished and professional-looking videos.

Tools for Course Creation Don’t Have to Break the Bank

Incorporating custom visuals into your AI Course Creator projects can transform your training materials from ordinary to exceptional. By leveraging free tools for course creation that allow you to add free imagery, use screen captures, and edit videos for dynamic and engaging learning experiences that resonate with your audience.

Whether you’re breaking down complex ideas, adding visual interest, or providing clear instructions, these tools for course creation are invaluable in elevating the quality of your AI Course Creator projects. Start experimenting with these tools for course creation today and see how they can help you deliver more impactful and memorable training.