Improvements to Thrive Apprentice
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Hi – what do you think about the recent and coming improvements to Thrive Apprentice? I feel like I keep going back and forth between using Thrive Apprentice which I already have and adding/learning the administrative set up to run my courses myself vs. use my WordPress site to link to hosting courses via Thinkific and use their administrative tools. I just recently gave Apprentice another look and decided Thinkific was better for me but now I see announcements of even more improvements to Apprentice and wonder all over again.
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I also keep deciding and re-deciding. I have a LearnDash license I could use (David uses LearnDash), and… I am using the Thrive Themes for site design, ThriveCart for shopping cart, and Thrive Apprentice for 2 courses which have worked fine.
For me now that they are revealing over the next two weeks, unless I have a Must course (which I don’t) my intention is to take one of the TApprentice courses I’ve already done and tweak it using the new version, and see how I feel about it.
I admit to a prejudice against external services for something as core as my courseware, unless it was really tightly integrated into my tech stack. Apprentice moving to allow me much freer design flexibility using a tools I already use for the overall site feels… preferable.
Significantly preferable.
And I know they won’t “nail it” for all the different types of courses that other tools have been offering either. We’ll see what the daily reveal brings.
Do your courses have specific needs that made the current TA not work for you?
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<div>Thanks, Rick – that’s a good idea to think about trying it out. I can still run 1 class free on Thinkific so I’m not getting paralyzed by new options (my kryptonite!). I forgot now what made me say no to the old Apprentice after I did the tutorial. An essential feature I need is for students to be able to submit video and, longer term, to be able to group students in cohorts of about 25 so I can easily assign the video review to someone serving as a TA. I also want to transition students to an ongoing community/membership. I can always still run my beta students via Thinkific while learning more about the new Apprentice. Thanks for reminding me of that!
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I looked over at Thinkific, and I can imagine if I wanted to really focus on courses (and membership around them), paying for such a system rather than piecing it and doing workarounds would be attractive — if my business model allowed as I grew to support $500+ per month in fees. Certainly less than renting workshop space in the physical world! I allow for lots of student on a gliding scale, and I don’t quite have the needs you do.
I didn’t see where they let students upload videos — do they have a video recorder built in, or…?
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Thanks for taking a fresh look, Rick. I’m always open to points I’m missing. Good point, too, about physical space. I used to pay about 50% of my revenue to the hospitals that marketed and hosted my in-person classes (prenatal classes about dogs and babies). I also think ahead about being locked into something that adds a per student fee as business grows. Not sure if I’d get to a point where that’s an issue – so many unknowns! The video uploading in Thinkific is possible in the discussion boards unique to each lesson and also in the assignments feature. I’m pretty sure it’s direct upload like it is with the lessons. Not 100% sure I remember but they display cleanly in the message board vs seeing just a link. I think with Apprentice, it’s similar but laid out below like WordPress comments.
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I will be taking a look at the new Apprentice when it comes out. I think it will likely be better than other course platforms in terms of visual editing, but probably never in terms of features and interoperability. I evaluated it and I’m going to stick with Learndash because it works so well with my software stack. Thrive Themes, as good as it is, doesn’t play well with others. They aren’t that open to other developers extending their platform. Since I use WP Fusion and refuse to operate without it anymore – and it doesn’t work with Apprentice – that right there is the deciding factor.
As for external services, you know me. 🙂 I’m always a fan of doing it in-house on WordPress.
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