Build an Online Course with Sketchnotes


Share your passion.

Turn your interests and skills into a transformative educational experience for others.


The Thing About Sketchnoters

Here’s something that I’ve noticed about the people who become enthusiastic about sketchnoting:

Build an Online Course with Sketchnotes: if you've got an interest in visual thinking and experiences that you'd like to share with others, you're in the right place.

Does this describe you?

They're lifelong learners and makers, eager to continue building their visual thinking skills and use those skills in new ways.

They've got skills and knowledge in some other field because of their educational and professional experience.

They're passionate about the work they do in that field and the impact that it has on the world.

They're generous with that passion and want to share it with others.

What I'm presenting here is an opportunity for you to bring all of those things together to create an engaging and transformative online course that others will benefit from.

How Sketchnotes Can Help

Here’s how sketchnoting will help you throughout the process of building an online course:

Build an Online Course with Sketchnotes: you can use sketchnoting in the course development process, within the course lessons themselves, and to create engaging printables that encourage student action.

Weaving sketchnoting into the course creation process will help you deliver a more impactful product.

Course Development: Use sketchnotes to help research, plan, and create buzz about your course by sharing your work as you go.

Lesson Delivery: Create visual hooks within your lessons to more efficiently and effectively share your ideas.

Student Action: Create engaging printables to anchor the actions that you encourage your students to take.


Course Overview


Unit 1: Define the Transformation

In this first unit of our course you'll identify the transformation that you'll bring your future students through.

1.1 Course Overview
1.2 Audience and Transformation
1.3 Mode of Communication and Delivery
1.4 Your Course Description

Unit 2: Brainstorm Lesson Ideas

In this unit you'll start developing lesson ideas that will help your future students through the transformation you identified in the last unit.

2.1 Start Brainstorming
2.2 Pull from Your Experience
2.3 Pull from Conversations
2.4 Pull from Research
2.5 Finish Brainstorming


Unit 3: Draft Sketchnotes & Scripts

In this unit you'll draft the sketchnotes that will make up each of your lessons and the script that will go alongside those visuals.

3.1 From Brainstorming to Lesson Planning
3.2 Lesson Question #1: What's the Point?
3.3 Lesson Question #2: What's the Visual Structure
3.4 Lesson Question #3: What's the Follow-Up Action?
3.5 Sketchnotes & Scripts

Unit 4: Produce Course Materials

In this unit you'll take the lesson drafts you created in the last unit and produce all of your course materials.

4.1 From Draft to Production
4.2 Produce Your First Lesson
4.3 Start Batching
4.4 Finish Production


Unit 5: Deliver a Transformative Experience

In this unit you'll share your course with the world!

5.1 Build the Educational Environment
5.2 Hit Publish
5.3 Seek Feedback
5.4 Keep Talking

Sample Lesson

Check out the first lesson from the course to get an overview of what you'll learn:


Live Visual Thinking Workshops

Connect with Doug and other visual thinkers from around the globe in these regular live events.


Monthly Q & A

Bring questions related to the course you're working through or share your latest sketchnoting project for feedback. Open to all skill and experience levels. Join us for some rich discussions about the world of visual thinking!

Upcoming Q & A:

December 12th at 9:00am Pacific Time


Quarterly Book Club

Each quarter I share two books that I'll be reading and I encourage you to pick one (or both!) to read and sketchnote along with me. We meet once a month to discuss the ideas within the books and how you're going about making them visual.

Upcoming Book Club Event:

January 23rd at 9:00am Pacific Time


Learn from Anywhere

Build an Online Course with Sketchnotes: laptop, desktop, tablet, and smartphone screenshots of the online learning environment.

Built on top of the Mighty Networks platform, you'll be able to access all of our resources from any browser or by using the native iOS or Android app.


What Students are Saying

Build an Online Course with Sketchnotes gave me everything I needed to create my first online course. It’s full of great information and tasks to support learning everything you need to know to create ANY course online or off, with sketchnotes or without. It gave me the confidence I needed to finally get started along with a complete plan to go from concept to completion. Thank you, Doug!

Erik Ireland

I am loving Verbal to Visual! It’s been like a gift from heaven to me. I’m currently taking Build an Online Course with Sketchnotes. It’s really helped me organize my jumbled thoughts. I’ve been trying to create this course for two years now, and hired expensive coaches, and so far this is the first course that seems to be structured and explained in a way that works for my brain. Thank you for the hard work you put into creating this!

Mindy Rowley


Become a Visual Thinker

Develop the instinct. Hone the craft.



The Full Curriculum

$495 - Purchase

Lifetime access to our library of complete-at-your-own-pace courses:

  • An Introduction to Visual Note-Taking
  • Digital Sketchnoting
  • How to Make Sketchnote Videos
  • Building an Online Course with Sketchnotes
  • Learn in Public
  • Learn a New Language with Sketchnotes
  • Sketchnoting Side Hustle


The Learning Community

$985 - Purchase

Lifetime access to all of the resources within the Curriculum package, as well as one year of access to:

  • Monthly live Q & A sessions with Doug
  • Quarterly book clubs with monthly live check-in events
  • Share your sketchnotes and get feedback on your work
  • Connect with a global community of visual thinkers

At the end of the year you'll have the option to renew your community membership for $495 per year.


The Coaching Accelerator

$1475 - Purchase

Access to all of the resources within the Curriculum and Community packages, as well as:

  • Four hour-long one-on-one coaching sessions with Doug
  • Ongoing email mentoring with Doug

If you're interested in a stand-alone coaching package, reach out: doug@verbaltovisual.com.