I come bearing excellent news!
We’re releasing a brand-new version of Education Cloud PLUS in the first quarter of this year. 🙌 It’s coming up real soon, so get excited for that! 🥳
So, I thought what better time to look back and share with you some key moments on the journey that’s brought us here. In this article, I’ll let you in on some of the most important steps we’ve taken when it comes to developing Education Cloud PLUS – as well as some exciting features we’ll roll out next.
We’ll start – you’ve guessed it – at the beginning, with the story of how the idea of Education Cloud was born.
And just like that.. the idea of Education Cloud was born
Sharing knowledge has always been at the core of what we do at Squirrly.
We’ve honored that promise to help people in our community become better marketers by consistently creating lessons and training programs that answered their needs.
For the most part, these lessons could be accessed at different links across our sites.
But in 2016, we came up with the idea of creating a dedicated place that would hold the different classes we’ve created for our audience – and built Education Cloud on a membership plugin for WordPress. A total of six courses were available inside the 2016 version.
Our lifetime users who gained free access to it, still have access today.
At the end of 2019, we decided to update our best marketing courses and give them a new HOME.
We wanted to make it more convenient and more enjoyable for people to learn from our lessons. So we switched from the 2016 platform to the Education Cloud 2020 platform.
We built the new Education Cloud using our very own Learning Solutions by Squirrly software. The builder platform is solid and used by pharma companies with 2000+ employees.
And then it was time for Launch! 🚀
The official launch event for Education Cloud 2020 took place on November 2019. You can still check it out here >>
People in our community instantly fell in love with it!
their words..
As we started to spread the word about the new Education Cloud, more and more people were drawn to the idea of having a dedicated place where they could go to in order to master new skills to get better business and marketing results.
Since officially launching the platform in November 2019:
- the number of people who signed up to get access to our platform has consistently gone up. +4,216 people currently subscribed.
- we’ve also seen a steady increase in the percentage of monthly active users, and we’re happy to notice that even people who signed up 10, 12 months prior continue to log in to learn from the courses.
- over 1,000 entrepreneurs have invested in a Premium Pass already, to get access to everything inside and to all the EdTech features.
In 2020 and 2021, we introduced: New Courses, New Pricing Plans, and a New Name
We’ve designed Education Cloud as a membership platform, and this made people feel they are getting access to an exclusive, private space purposefully built for learning digital marketing.
Why was this important?
We’ve seen that when people access our courses from a platform that’s exclusively built for that, they are more FOCUSED, more ENGAGED, and more likely to complete multiple lessons.
Users were able to sign up to the platform with a free account, which would give them access to three courses every month (courses get changed by rotation). This option is still available today.
We also offered a Premium Pass, a paid subscription that would give users instant access to all the courses inside.
We started with Yearly Plans in November and December 2019, and then added Monthly, Yearly and Lifetime Payment options in January 2020 (still available today).
See more pricing details here >>
We continued to add new courses to the platform throughout 2020 and 2021. So, the library of courses grew bigger and bigger with every new release – covering MORE topics to help users consistently build new skills.
In March 2021, we rolled out another key improvement, making it possible for users to access and view the courses from mobile devices. Of course, we tweeted about it on our official Twitter account! 📢
Our Courses from Education Cloud Plus (such as: 10,000 Visits from Social Media This Month) can be viewed from Mobile Devices now! Education Cloud Plus has also gone mobile, and there are plans for a mobile app as well. #SQROAD pic.twitter.com/jnDNj6qvPk
— Squirrly Company: for the next Queens and Kings 🐿 (@SquirrlyHQ) March 28, 2021
We’ve also added a special section inside the Education Cloud dashboard where users could see the list of courses they’ve started learning from (In Progress Courses).
Another important update was that we changed the platform’s name from: Education Cloud 2020 to Education Cloud PLUS.
And this takes us to present day…
Education Cloud PLUS Today: New Authors, 4x More Courses, Multiple Formats to Choose from
Education Cloud PLUS, 2022 version, is better and more complex than ever before.
We’ve made significant updates and improvements both in terms of the content available inside the platform – AND the experience of discovering the courses and learning from them.
We started with a total of 6 courses.
Now, there are over 35 premium, expert-led marketing courses available inside Education Cloud PLUS. The courses cover a wide array of topics, such as:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Branding
- Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Competitor Analysis
- Business Growth Strategies
- Site Security Best Practices
- and much more.
We’ve also expanded the list of course formats to enrich our users’ learning experience and suit more learning styles. The lessons inside the platform can now contain four types of content:
- video,
- audio,
- PDFs,
- and HTML objects
As an Education Cloud learner, you have the flexibility to go after the formats you love most.
Some Premium Pass members prefer audio, some video, and some prefer text-based lessons with images and infographics.
Soon, you will also be able to filter by your desired media types and make a custom learning plan only from audio, or only from video, if that’s how you like it.
Furthermore, all the courses can be accessed from any device. As an Education Cloud PLUS user, you are now able to switch between laptop /desktop, mobile, and tablet as you wish.
Discover Section: Easily Find New Courses to Take from a Growing Library of Courses
The Education Cloud PLUS catalog of courses is constantly expanding – as we’re always adding new titles to it.
However, our vision for Education Cloud PLUS goes beyond it simply being a library of courses. We also wanted to provide ways to help users optimize learning.
In addition to hosting 4x times more courses than the first version we released, Education Cloud PLUS also comes with significant UI and UX improvements.
It’s now much easier for users to browse the library of courses, find the best courses for their needs, and stay inspired on their learning journey.
The Discover section showcases some of the latest and most popular courses inside the platform – along with a quick description of each course.
It’s a place where you can always find fresh inspiration when it comes to what to learn next, from over 504 learning materials.
- Get recommendations from a community of lifelong learners and discover trending courses that other users are currently loving.
- Hear from marketing experts and find out which are some of the top courses they swear by.
- Check out the latest courses to be added to the platform and get excited about new titles to be released next.
Also new in 2022!
❤️New Website Home Page (check it out here >>)
💚 New Pricing Page (have a look!)
The Next Level: Optimize How You Learn with an EdTech SaaS Built for Entrepreneurs
The biggest change yet, in terms of #EdTech platform, is almost here.
All the new features we’ve been working on for Education Cloud PLUS 2022 are meant to turn it into a SaaS that helps you learn better, discover amazing topics to master next, and create your own learning plans.
- Add to My List Functionality.
This will make it super easy for you to save your favorite courses to your list with one click. And when you’re ready to start learning, you’ll find them all neatly organized inside the “Continue Learning” section.
- Option to create Customized Learning Plans.
With the new Education Cloud PLUS, you will be able to add individual lessons from any course to your Learning Plan and build a CUSTOM course that’s 100% tailored to what YOU want to learn.
Once you start taking lessons, you’ll also get to see your learning progress and keep track of all the new skills you’re building.
Looking forward: Get a sneak peek at the (very near) Future
We have many exciting plans and ideas for the next development stage of Education Cloud PLUS.
Our goal is to continue to grow the platform as an EdTech SaaS, as we want it to become an essential tool to help users optimize learning, find highly-relevant courses to learn from, and continuously build new marketing skills.
With this goal in mind, we’re also getting ready to introduce more new features very soon (as soon as April 2022). One feature we’re particularly excited about is this:
✨ Quizzes as a Course Recommendations Engine
Soon, you will be able to use Quizzes inside the platform to develop a custom learning strategy.
Inside Education Cloud PLUS, quizzes will make it easy to:
- assess your current skills,
- get guidance on what to learn next,
- and see your knowledge improve.
You’ll start by picking a quiz from the list and answering the questions. Submit your answers, and you’ll instantly get to see how well you scored.
And here comes the best part:
Based on your quiz scores, Education Cloud PLUS will suggest which courses inside the platform to take next.
Think of it as a recommendation engine which helps you develop a custom learning strategy that aligns with your current skills and your opportunities to improve.
More exciting things coming up…
✨ Partner Program for Education Cloud PLUS Instructors
We have plans to extend our Partner Program to feature more Instructors with digital marketing expertise for you to learn from. More on this to be announced soon.
✨ Dedicated Meet the Authors Section
We’re also working on a brand new Meet the Authors section inside Education Cloud PLUS. In this section, you will be able to get to know the instructors teaching on the platform and what their area of expertise is.
✨Filters
The collection of premium courses available inside Education Cloud PLUS is always growing. Soon, you will have access to advanced built-in filters that’ll allow you to quickly sort through all existing courses to find relevant titles that support your current goals and interests.
✨ New Courses
There are many new courses (including new VIDEO courses) that we’re excited to share with you soon. Some of the topics covered in these courses are: graphic design (learn to create eye-catching visuals to promote your business), eCommerce, content marketing, and much more.
You can keep an eye on what courses we’ll release next in the Coming Soon section inside the Discover panel of Education Cloud PLUS.
Stay up to date with the latest and greatest news about Education Cloud PLUS!
Going forward, you will be able to see more in our #SQROAD feed on Twitter.
Many updates and new developments get seen there ^^ as soon as we make them available.
Plus, you can always stay in the loop when it comes to new features we’re working on by keeping track of the announcements we post in our official Roadmap for Education Cloud PLUS.
