Description

Building courses shouldn’t feel like building furniture from IKEA

I’ve written enough training material to know the pattern. You have the knowledge in your head. You know what someone needs to learn. But translating that into a structured course? Suddenly you’re stuck.

Should the checklist come before the worksheet? Is three segments enough or do you need five? What level of detail is right for “intermediate”? Every decision eats time. And the worst part — you haven’t even written anything yet.

That’s why I built Short Course Studio.

The problem with blank documents

Most people start in Word or Google Docs. They write a heading, then another heading, then realise the order is wrong. They reshuffle. They rewrite. Hours pass, and what do they have? A messy outline and growing frustration.

Short courses need a different approach. Each segment should be one focused unit — theory, then something practical, then a quick check. Bite-sized enough to print on a few pages. Dense enough to actually be useful.

But structuring that by hand for every new topic? That’s busywork. And busywork is the enemy of actually creating things.

How the tool thinks

Short Course Studio works like this:

You tell it the course title, what someone will be able to do afterwards, who it’s for, and the level — from Raw Novice (3 segments) up to Expert (9 segments).

It builds the segment structure automatically. For a how-to course on intermediate level, you get: Introduction, Core Concept, Step-by-Step, Worksheet, Checklist, Summary, Deep Dive, Troubleshooting.

Each segment includes a prompt written specifically for that course. Not generic “write something useful” — a real prompt that understands your audience and level. Paste that into Claude or ChatGPT or whatever you use, copy the response back, and the app stores it.

When you export, it parses your content by the ##THEORY##, ##ACTIVITY##, and ##ASSESSMENT## tags. You get clean separation without extra formatting work.

What you actually get

Two export options:

JSON if you’re integrating with your own systems — LMS, mobile app, whatever.

Print HTML if you’re doing what most people actually do: printing the damn thing and handing it to someone.

No DRM. No expiring links. No “request access.” Just a file you own.

The honest take

This tool won’t write your course for you. You still need to know your subject. You still need to think.

But it will handle the structure, the prompts, the parsing, and the formatting. It will save you the twenty minutes of staring at a blank page trying to remember how many segments you used last time.

If you write training materials — for baristas, for new hires, for compliance, for anything — give it a try. It runs as a Windows installer, a portable EXE (no install needed), or right in your browser as a PWA.

Human in the Loop

I embrace human-in-the-loop AI because the best results happen when human judgment and creativity guide the machine, not the other way around. My apps use AI to accelerate thinking and reduce friction, while keeping people firmly in control of the final decisions, direction, and meaning.

No account – just use it.

Q: Do I need an internet connection to use this?
A: No. Once loaded, everything runs locally. The PWA version needs a browser, but the Windows and portable versions work entirely offline.

Q: Does it write the content for me?
A: No. It gives you structured prompts to use with any AI tool — or you can write manually. You paste the final content back in. The app handles the structure and formatting, not the actual teaching material.

Q: What file formats can I export?
A: JSON (structured data for your own systems) and print-ready HTML (open in browser → print → save as PDF or paper).