August 2, 2024 • 13 mins
Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille, hosted by Camille Freeman, an experienced herbalist and nutritionist. In this episode, Camille responds to a question from Olivia, who is considering revamping her online program at the Collective Wonder Herb School.
Camille shares her extensive experience with various e-learning platforms, ultimately explaining why she chose Zenler for her programs and memberships. She highlights key features such as built-in Zoom integration, assignment tracking, and video hosting, which have made Zenler a suitable choice for her needs.
While discussing the pros and cons of Zenler, Camille provides valuable insights for practitioners looking to choose the right platform for their online courses. She also offers a referral link for those interested in trying Zenler.
Whether you're an educator or a practitioner, this episode is packed with practical advice on navigating the complex world of e-learning platforms.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman.
I am an herbalist and nutritionist, and in this podcast, I share little tips
and tidbits that might be helpful for other practitioners.
Today, I have a question from Olivia. Olivia wrote in and asked if I could share
a little bit of feedback about the e-learning platform that I use because Olivia
is thinking about revamping an online program that she's created through the
(00:23):
Collective Wonder Herb School.
So, let me share some experience with you. Now, I get this question quite a
lot, So I thought maybe it would be helpful to record a podcast episode so I
can refer people here in the future.
If you have no interest in online course and membership platforms,
feel free to skip ahead to the next episode on your playlist.
No hard feelings. You can always catch up with the next episode I publish probably next week.
(00:46):
But for people who are interested in a little bit more, let me dive in.
Now, I, as some of you know, I have spent, gosh, I've been teaching online through
the university setting since 2010.
And the learning management systems
that are available through educational institutions are quite robust.
So I have a lot of training and experience using those.
(01:09):
And in 2019, I decided I wanted to set up my own through my own platform and
started diving into the options that are available.
Over that time, not counting the university-associated learning management platforms.
I have used four different platforms, and they all have pros and cons.
(01:29):
So I'm not here to evangelize for the one I use.
No matter what you pick, you are going to be sacrificing some things and getting
top-notch whatever other thing.
So there isn't a perfect right answer. In my situation, I've chosen what appears
to be the best choice for me for right now, but that may or may not be what
(01:51):
you need and what fits in your budget.
So all of that said, right now for my programs and membership.
We use a program called Zendler.
I switched over to Zendler fully about two, two and a half years ago.
I tested it out for a little while before that.
And there's a couple of main reasons that I use Zendler. One of them is that
(02:16):
Zendler includes a Zoom account.
So what that means is you can have up to 300 people on their Zoom.
A standard Zoom, if you're paying for it yourself, it only accommodates up to 100.
That's not super relevant for most people just getting started.
But I do have some programs where there are more than 100 people registered.
(02:37):
And I just want to make sure that if every single person decides to come to
a live class or live session, that I am able to accommodate that number of people.
So it's really handy to have Zoom inbuilt, and I do not have to pay extra for
Zoom to use within the Zendler platform.
The other reason that having Zoom within Zendler really helps is because I have
(02:59):
multiple teachers and facilitators working within my ecosystem.
And when I was using my own Zoom account, either I had to get a second Zoom
account for teachers and facilitators to use.
The ethics and the legality of it were a little bit weird. I don't want to pay
for a whole separate Zoom account for each facilitator when they're only doing
(03:21):
one class every two months. That seems like a really big expenditure.
But on the other hand, it's also challenging to give everybody who's teaching
within my courses and programs access to my full Zoom account.
So it just got, it started to get a little bit murky. And I felt like the logistics were complicated.
Because Zenler has built in Zoom, we can use that Zoom.
(03:43):
Anybody who's teaching, we
can set it up so that they can just start the Zoom, record to the cloud.
And, you know, they don't have to record to their own computer.
They don't have to have a separate Zoom account, a separate login, all of that stuff.
So that's worked out really well. The only issue to know about, and this, again,
this may or may not be relevant depending on how much you've got going on,
(04:03):
is that you can't have two concurrent live Zooms going within your single Zimler account.
So if I were teaching a class on,
you know, herbs and fertility and somebody else at the same time wanted to host
a Q&A session about something else, that wouldn't be possible.
We have to only have one live class going at a time. Again, that's not super,
(04:24):
super important for most people.
But it's just a little thing that I've picked up along the way that you have
to make sure there's not any overlapping classes.
The Zindler Zoom, again, it holds up to 300 people.
Zindler also provides you with Zoom webinar, which if you wanted to buy that
separately through Zoom, I think it's something like $150 or $200 a month.
(04:45):
In case you're not clear, Zoom webinar is the type of Zoom where nobody is on
camera except the panelists.
You don't even have the option to turn your camera on.
People who are watching the webinar can only participate in the chat or the
Q&A if given permission.
You can set up the settings that way, but they are not visible.
It doesn't have the little puzzle board of everybody's faces and all that.
(05:09):
It's just a straight webinar.
So that's a really nice feature if you wanted to teach bigger classes and so forth.
Now, there's, you know, there's pros and cons to all of this,
but it is a really, that's a great bonus added for me.
And I don't actually use it that much, but it is nice to have it during the times when I do want it.
The other things that the other main reason that I chose Zoom over some of the
(05:32):
other platforms that are, I'm sorry, I chose Zendler over some of the other
platforms that are available on the market is because it does have the assignment feature.
And as somebody who's a former university professor, I really like to have courses
where people are submitting things and getting feedback from me.
I feel like it's really important to have that interaction as much as I can.
(05:54):
So I did not want something where people would have to email me their assignments
and then I'd have to keep track of it and somehow email back to them.
That's very complicated, especially when you have larger numbers of students.
So Zendler, unlike most other platforms, some of them are starting to get this
now. But Zendler has a feature where you can add assignments.
And what that does is it keeps track within Zendler. It'll show you from the
(06:18):
instructor level, you have four outstanding assignments.
And then you can go in there, you review the assignment, you can click approve,
and then you can send feedback to the person in, you know, in a message or response.
So I really, really appreciate that because it's just easy to keep track.
I'm not trying to deal with emails and that sort of thing.
So that was a really big one for me. The third really big reason that I chose
(06:40):
Zendler over some of the other platforms that are available is because it has built in video hosting.
And if you're familiar with my programs, I actually offer, I have Monday Mentoring,
which we have three live sessions every Monday.
And then I frequently teach classes that have live sessions,
you know, once a week, as well as video lectures that are posted in the classes.
(07:04):
You know, I do frequent webinars for the public, that sort of thing.
All of these, I want to be recorded and the recordings posted within my course,
more learning management system.
And a A lot of them do not provide video hosting, meaning you have to get your
own Vimeo account or some other type of hosting and then connect it and then
upload the videos there and then post them, blah, blah, blah.
(07:27):
It just gets very complicated.
So for me, I was like, I need simplicity. I need as few logins and platforms
and things like that as I can get because things are already complicated on the back end.
And so Zendler has built-in video hosting.
I can upload as much as I want into Zendler. There's not limit within reason.
And I think they probably would cut you off if you tried, you know,
(07:48):
depending, but I haven't reached any, nearing any limits. And so that really works well for me.
The nice thing about having Zoom built into Zindler is that if I have a guest
coming in and hosting a Monday mentoring session or whatever,
they hit record, it saves it to Zindler's Zoom.
And then I, when I'm working with an assistant, my assistant can go in there
(08:11):
and get the recording and post it within Zoom. so I don't need to be involved.
Nobody's trying to email MP4s and blah, blah, blahs back and forth.
It's just all within the ecosystem.
So for me, those are the really big things. Also, the price is right.
Zindler is quite affordable relative to many of the other kind of e-learning platforms.
(08:32):
Once you start into the kind of paid system, I believe all of the paid tiers
are unlimited numbers of courses and unlimited numbers of students.
So that You're not limited to just three courses that you can have or 100 students
or something like that. So I feel like there's a lot of room to grow.
I haven't had any limitations on what I want to do.
(08:57):
So those are some of the reasons that I have worked with Zendler.
Like I said, I have tried multiple other platforms extensively,
sometimes for a year or more.
And just for me right now, because of these main three things, it is a good fit.
They are all very similar. And again, and some have pros and cons in other ways.
The things that I don't appreciate as much about Zendler are I don't think it's very pretty.
(09:20):
It's not out of the box. I don't think it looks super modern and up to date.
So I have kind of worked as much as I can around that.
I tried to make the pages feel modern and branded and that sort of thing. And,
So that's one thing. I think it looks a little bit more dated than some of the
other platforms, but maybe that's just a personal opinion.
(09:45):
It is still in beta, and there are some glitches that happen from time to time.
I think this is true of everything.
All of the platforms I've used have had some small and some major glitches along
the way. But again, Zendler is still under development.
They've been saying they're going to revise the community discussion boards,
for example, for years. And as far as I know, that has not happened.
(10:08):
That is another con for me. There are discussion boards, community spaces associated
with, you know, you can associate them with different courses.
But again, they're not very pretty. The notifications are not nuanced.
I actually use a different community space for Monday Mentoring because it's pretty limited.
But there is a discussion space. It's pretty preliminary. It is possible to use it.
(10:31):
Support is not super fast. You email them.
Often they get back to you within a day, but I have had times where the ball
is entirely dropped and I never hear back from them.
So, you know, sometimes it's really solid and sometimes it's less than solid
and I have to do a bunch of follow-up.
And, you know, there's, again, there's just like small things that come up along
the way, but I do believe that that's, this is just something that happens with
(10:54):
any tech platform. There's just going to be pros and cons.
So overall, I am happy with Zendler. I don't have plans to move unless I decide
to host everything on my own website, just to have a little bit more control and even more...
You know, streamlining of things. But that's a huge undertaking to move everything
over. So, you know, I don't think that's coming.
(11:16):
A couple other things that came up for me, Zendler does not take any fees.
So a lot of these platforms are like, oh, you know, you pay a monthly fee.
And then when somebody pays you to join a class or a membership,
they also take a percentage, you know, usually one, two, three,
five percent of how much the person is paying you.
Zendler doesn't do any of that. There's just a flat monthly fee. So I do like that.
(11:38):
They do have quizzing. They do have webhooks and automation.
For some people, that matters.
For some people, that's just too techie.
Anyway, there's a bunch of features. You can read all about the features on
basically every review that's ever been posted about Zimler.
But for me, the features that stand out are unlimited courses and students,
the built-in Zoom, including Zoom webinar,
(11:59):
the assignment feature where you can kind of keep track of who submitted what
and do that, as well as video hosting built in so that you don't have to pay for that separately.
So those are the highlights for me. I hope that helps. If you have any questions,
please let me know. And then lastly, if you are thinking about signing up for
Zindler, I do have a referral link, which is the same price for you,
(12:23):
but does provide a little bit of a kickback for me.
So I'd appreciate it if this review has been helpful for you,
or if you do decide to use it, if you would use my link, I would love that.
If not, you can just, you know, Google it and find the link yourself as well.
All right, let me know if you have any other questions.
For folks who are listening to this and would like to submit your own question
to the podcast, you can go to intheclinic.com and leave your question using
(12:46):
the little pink sidebar.
Otherwise, I do have a practitioner newsletter that goes out every Thursday.
I think you'll really like it. You can sign up at camillefreeman.com.
Just go and put your email address in and next Thursday, I will send you my practitioner notes.
All right, thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you soon.
Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman.
I am an herbalist and nutritionist, and in this podcast, I share little tips
and tidbits that might be helpful for other practitioners.
Today, I have a question from Olivia. Olivia wrote in and asked if I could share
a little bit of feedback about the e-learning platform that I use because Olivia
is thinking about revamping an online program that she's created through the
(00:23):
Collective Wonder Herb School.
So, let me share some experience with you. Now, I get this question quite a
lot, So I thought maybe it would be helpful to record a podcast episode so I
can refer people here in the future.
If you have no interest in online course and membership platforms,
feel free to skip ahead to the next episode on your playlist.
No hard feelings. You can always catch up with the next episode I publish probably next week.
(00:46):
But for people who are interested in a little bit more, let me dive in.
Now, I, as some of you know, I have spent, gosh, I've been teaching online through
the university setting since 2010.
And the learning management systems
that are available through educational institutions are quite robust.
So I have a lot of training and experience using those.
(01:09):
And in 2019, I decided I wanted to set up my own through my own platform and
started diving into the options that are available.
Over that time, not counting the university-associated learning management platforms.
I have used four different platforms, and they all have pros and cons.
(01:29):
So I'm not here to evangelize for the one I use.
No matter what you pick, you are going to be sacrificing some things and getting
top-notch whatever other thing.
So there isn't a perfect right answer. In my situation, I've chosen what appears
to be the best choice for me for right now, but that may or may not be what
(01:51):
you need and what fits in your budget.
So all of that said, right now for my programs and membership.
We use a program called Zendler.
I switched over to Zendler fully about two, two and a half years ago.
I tested it out for a little while before that.
And there's a couple of main reasons that I use Zendler. One of them is that
(02:16):
Zendler includes a Zoom account.
So what that means is you can have up to 300 people on their Zoom.
A standard Zoom, if you're paying for it yourself, it only accommodates up to 100.
That's not super relevant for most people just getting started.
But I do have some programs where there are more than 100 people registered.
(02:37):
And I just want to make sure that if every single person decides to come to
a live class or live session, that I am able to accommodate that number of people.
So it's really handy to have Zoom inbuilt, and I do not have to pay extra for
Zoom to use within the Zendler platform.
The other reason that having Zoom within Zendler really helps is because I have
(02:59):
multiple teachers and facilitators working within my ecosystem.
And when I was using my own Zoom account, either I had to get a second Zoom
account for teachers and facilitators to use.
The ethics and the legality of it were a little bit weird. I don't want to pay
for a whole separate Zoom account for each facilitator when they're only doing
(03:21):
one class every two months. That seems like a really big expenditure.
But on the other hand, it's also challenging to give everybody who's teaching
within my courses and programs access to my full Zoom account.
So it just got, it started to get a little bit murky. And I felt like the logistics were complicated.
Because Zenler has built in Zoom, we can use that Zoom.
(03:43):
Anybody who's teaching, we
can set it up so that they can just start the Zoom, record to the cloud.
And, you know, they don't have to record to their own computer.
They don't have to have a separate Zoom account, a separate login, all of that stuff.
So that's worked out really well. The only issue to know about, and this, again,
this may or may not be relevant depending on how much you've got going on,
(04:03):
is that you can't have two concurrent live Zooms going within your single Zimler account.
So if I were teaching a class on,
you know, herbs and fertility and somebody else at the same time wanted to host
a Q&A session about something else, that wouldn't be possible.
We have to only have one live class going at a time. Again, that's not super,
(04:24):
super important for most people.
But it's just a little thing that I've picked up along the way that you have
to make sure there's not any overlapping classes.
The Zindler Zoom, again, it holds up to 300 people.
Zindler also provides you with Zoom webinar, which if you wanted to buy that
separately through Zoom, I think it's something like $150 or $200 a month.
(04:45):
In case you're not clear, Zoom webinar is the type of Zoom where nobody is on
camera except the panelists.
You don't even have the option to turn your camera on.
People who are watching the webinar can only participate in the chat or the
Q&A if given permission.
You can set up the settings that way, but they are not visible.
It doesn't have the little puzzle board of everybody's faces and all that.
(05:09):
It's just a straight webinar.
So that's a really nice feature if you wanted to teach bigger classes and so forth.
Now, there's, you know, there's pros and cons to all of this,
but it is a really, that's a great bonus added for me.
And I don't actually use it that much, but it is nice to have it during the times when I do want it.
The other things that the other main reason that I chose Zoom over some of the
(05:32):
other platforms that are, I'm sorry, I chose Zendler over some of the other
platforms that are available on the market is because it does have the assignment feature.
And as somebody who's a former university professor, I really like to have courses
where people are submitting things and getting feedback from me.
I feel like it's really important to have that interaction as much as I can.
(05:54):
So I did not want something where people would have to email me their assignments
and then I'd have to keep track of it and somehow email back to them.
That's very complicated, especially when you have larger numbers of students.
So Zendler, unlike most other platforms, some of them are starting to get this
now. But Zendler has a feature where you can add assignments.
And what that does is it keeps track within Zendler. It'll show you from the
(06:18):
instructor level, you have four outstanding assignments.
And then you can go in there, you review the assignment, you can click approve,
and then you can send feedback to the person in, you know, in a message or response.
So I really, really appreciate that because it's just easy to keep track.
I'm not trying to deal with emails and that sort of thing.
So that was a really big one for me. The third really big reason that I chose
(06:40):
Zendler over some of the other platforms that are available is because it has built in video hosting.
And if you're familiar with my programs, I actually offer, I have Monday Mentoring,
which we have three live sessions every Monday.
And then I frequently teach classes that have live sessions,
you know, once a week, as well as video lectures that are posted in the classes.
(07:04):
You know, I do frequent webinars for the public, that sort of thing.
All of these, I want to be recorded and the recordings posted within my course,
more learning management system.
And a A lot of them do not provide video hosting, meaning you have to get your
own Vimeo account or some other type of hosting and then connect it and then
upload the videos there and then post them, blah, blah, blah.
(07:27):
It just gets very complicated.
So for me, I was like, I need simplicity. I need as few logins and platforms
and things like that as I can get because things are already complicated on the back end.
And so Zendler has built-in video hosting.
I can upload as much as I want into Zendler. There's not limit within reason.
And I think they probably would cut you off if you tried, you know,
(07:48):
depending, but I haven't reached any, nearing any limits. And so that really works well for me.
The nice thing about having Zoom built into Zindler is that if I have a guest
coming in and hosting a Monday mentoring session or whatever,
they hit record, it saves it to Zindler's Zoom.
And then I, when I'm working with an assistant, my assistant can go in there
(08:11):
and get the recording and post it within Zoom. so I don't need to be involved.
Nobody's trying to email MP4s and blah, blah, blahs back and forth.
It's just all within the ecosystem.
So for me, those are the really big things. Also, the price is right.
Zindler is quite affordable relative to many of the other kind of e-learning platforms.
(08:32):
Once you start into the kind of paid system, I believe all of the paid tiers
are unlimited numbers of courses and unlimited numbers of students.
So that You're not limited to just three courses that you can have or 100 students
or something like that. So I feel like there's a lot of room to grow.
I haven't had any limitations on what I want to do.
(08:57):
So those are some of the reasons that I have worked with Zendler.
Like I said, I have tried multiple other platforms extensively,
sometimes for a year or more.
And just for me right now, because of these main three things, it is a good fit.
They are all very similar. And again, and some have pros and cons in other ways.
The things that I don't appreciate as much about Zendler are I don't think it's very pretty.
(09:20):
It's not out of the box. I don't think it looks super modern and up to date.
So I have kind of worked as much as I can around that.
I tried to make the pages feel modern and branded and that sort of thing. And,
So that's one thing. I think it looks a little bit more dated than some of the
other platforms, but maybe that's just a personal opinion.
(09:45):
It is still in beta, and there are some glitches that happen from time to time.
I think this is true of everything.
All of the platforms I've used have had some small and some major glitches along
the way. But again, Zendler is still under development.
They've been saying they're going to revise the community discussion boards,
for example, for years. And as far as I know, that has not happened.
(10:08):
That is another con for me. There are discussion boards, community spaces associated
with, you know, you can associate them with different courses.
But again, they're not very pretty. The notifications are not nuanced.
I actually use a different community space for Monday Mentoring because it's pretty limited.
But there is a discussion space. It's pretty preliminary. It is possible to use it.
(10:31):
Support is not super fast. You email them.
Often they get back to you within a day, but I have had times where the ball
is entirely dropped and I never hear back from them.
So, you know, sometimes it's really solid and sometimes it's less than solid
and I have to do a bunch of follow-up.
And, you know, there's, again, there's just like small things that come up along
the way, but I do believe that that's, this is just something that happens with
(10:54):
any tech platform. There's just going to be pros and cons.
So overall, I am happy with Zendler. I don't have plans to move unless I decide
to host everything on my own website, just to have a little bit more control and even more...
You know, streamlining of things. But that's a huge undertaking to move everything
over. So, you know, I don't think that's coming.
(11:16):
A couple other things that came up for me, Zendler does not take any fees.
So a lot of these platforms are like, oh, you know, you pay a monthly fee.
And then when somebody pays you to join a class or a membership,
they also take a percentage, you know, usually one, two, three,
five percent of how much the person is paying you.
Zendler doesn't do any of that. There's just a flat monthly fee. So I do like that.
(11:38):
They do have quizzing. They do have webhooks and automation.
For some people, that matters.
For some people, that's just too techie.
Anyway, there's a bunch of features. You can read all about the features on
basically every review that's ever been posted about Zimler.
But for me, the features that stand out are unlimited courses and students,
the built-in Zoom, including Zoom webinar,
(11:59):
the assignment feature where you can kind of keep track of who submitted what
and do that, as well as video hosting built in so that you don't have to pay for that separately.
So those are the highlights for me. I hope that helps. If you have any questions,
please let me know. And then lastly, if you are thinking about signing up for
Zindler, I do have a referral link, which is the same price for you,
(12:23):
but does provide a little bit of a kickback for me.
So I'd appreciate it if this review has been helpful for you,
or if you do decide to use it, if you would use my link, I would love that.
If not, you can just, you know, Google it and find the link yourself as well.
All right, let me know if you have any other questions.
For folks who are listening to this and would like to submit your own question
to the podcast, you can go to intheclinic.com and leave your question using
(12:46):
the little pink sidebar.
Otherwise, I do have a practitioner newsletter that goes out every Thursday.
I think you'll really like it. You can sign up at camillefreeman.com.
Just go and put your email address in and next Thursday, I will send you my practitioner notes.
All right, thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you soon.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides.  Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer  Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.