Introduction

Have you ever found yourself in this situation when starting to build an online course?

• Spending hours just choosing colors and fonts for slides, yet still feeling unsatisfied.
• Writing content, deleting it, and rewriting multiple times because you’re unsure how to organize information in a clear, logical, and easy-to-follow way.
• Searching endlessly for illustrations, icons, or backgrounds, only to find that once added to the slides, they feel off-tone and inconsistent with the course’s overall style.
• Struggling to synchronize colors and layouts across slides to achieve a professional look—wasting a lot of time with results that still don’t feel right.

The good news is: this article will show you how to use AI to solve all of these problems in just a few minutes.

1. AI – a “super-fast assistant” for educators

With AI, educators can save a tremendous amount of time and effort when building online courses:

• Save up to 10x the time: Instead of spending 3–4 hours designing a slide deck, AI can help you complete it in just 10–15 minutes.
• Professional-looking slides: AI automatically harmonizes colors, selects suitable fonts, and inserts illustrations or icons that align with your content.
• Automatic content suggestions: AI doesn’t just create outlines—it suggests examples and expands each bullet point, making content clearer, more logical, and easier to follow.
• Easy editing and personalization: You can ask AI to adjust the tone, add details for specific learner groups, or match the unique style of your course.

💡 Small tip: Before using AI, prepare your core idea, learning objectives, and target learners. AI will rely on this information to optimize everything else, ensuring your slides are both visually appealing and learning-focused.

2. 4 steps to create slides quickly with AI

Recommended tools: Gamma and Canva AI

• Gamma: Allows you to create slides using a single prompt. AI automatically structures layouts, chooses colors and fonts, and inserts relevant visuals—ideal for creating logical, professional presentations in a short time.
• Canva AI: Offers hundreds of diverse templates with strong visual appeal. You can input your content, and AI will suggest layouts, icons, images, and matching color schemes. Slides can be exported directly as PDF or MP4 for online lectures.

💡 Note: Combining both tools gives you speed and flexibility—use Gamma to generate a logical slide structure, then refine and beautify it visually with Canva AI.

Step 1: Give AI a clear prompt

Prepare a clear prompt for AI, including:

• Topic: Course or lesson content.
• Target learners: Level, needs, and preferences.
• Number of slides: Helps AI distribute content appropriately.
• Presentation style: Friendly, professional, youthful, or academic.

Example prompt:

Create 10 slides on workplace communication skills for fresh graduates. Use a friendly, easy-to-understand tone and include real-life examples.

💡 Tip: Clearly defining your audience and style helps AI create content that is practical and easy to absorb, avoiding slides that are overly technical or unnecessarily long.

💡 Further reading: You can explore how to use AI to create visual slides and infographics here:

Step 2: Generate the slides

After preparing your prompt, create slides using your chosen AI tool:

• Gamma:
  1. Select “Create New” → “Generate”.
  2. Paste your prompt.
  3. Choose a suitable theme.
  4. Click Generate to let AI build the slides, arrange layouts, and insert visuals.
• Canva AI:
  1. Choose a template that matches your lecture style.
  2. Paste your prepared ideas or content.
  3. AI automatically generates slides and suggests images, icons, and color schemes.

💡 Small tip: Choose a minimalist theme if you want slides that are clean and easy to follow—especially when learners view them on mobile devices or tablets.

Step 3: Refine & personalize the slides

After AI generates the slides, take time to tailor them to your teaching style and content:

• Edit the wording: Adjust phrasing, add notes, or include personal insights to make slides more relatable and easy to understand.
• Replace images or icons: If AI suggestions don’t fit your lesson, swap them for more relevant visuals.
• Verify examples and data: Ensure accuracy, logic, and suitability for your learners.

💡 Small tip: Adding personal stories, case studies, or real-world examples makes slides more engaging, strengthens learner connection, and improves retention.

Step 4: Export slides & prepare your lecture

Once your slides are finalized, export them in formats that suit your teaching needs:

• PowerPoint (.pptx): Easy to edit further, add animations, or include speaker notes.
• PDF: Lightweight and convenient for learners to download and read on phones or tablets without font issues.
• MP4 (Canva AI): Turn slides into visual lecture videos with narration, background music, or smooth transitions.

💡 Tip: For video lectures, consider breaking slides into 3–5 minute segments. This improves learner focus and makes AI voice-over or real voice recording easier.

3. Turn slides into complete lectures 🎥

Method 1: Convert slides into reading lessons

• Use AI to expand slides into detailed text, for example: “Based on 10 slides about communication skills, write a detailed lesson in a friendly, easy-to-understand tone.”
• Review the content and add examples or notes if needed.
• Copy the finalized lesson into Ourdemy or your platform’s editor for learners to read directly.
• Break lessons into smaller modules to make them easier to absorb and review.

💡 Tip: Keep formatting clear—use headings, bullet points, and highlighted keywords to create a comfortable reading experience.

Method 2: Learning materials (PDF/slides)

• Upload PDF slides directly to Ourdemy for learners to download.
• Add summary documents, practice guides, or worksheets.
• Allow learners to print or view offline for effective revision.
• Combine PDFs with videos and reading lessons to support multiple learning styles: listening, viewing, and reading.

💡 Tip:

• Arrange materials logically alongside videos and link related content types for easy access.
• Combining video + reading + PDF makes courses more engaging, easier to follow, and optimizes the learning experience.

4. Course management on Ourdemy

Ourdemy is more than just a content hosting platform—it’s a comprehensive course management system that helps educators run professional online courses. Specifically, it allows you to:

• Manage all content in one place: Store slides, videos, PDFs, and audio within a single course for easy access and updates.
• Ensure strong content security: Prevent content leakage and ensure lectures are accessible only to enrolled learners.
• Organize lessons in detail: Create chapters, lessons, quizzes, and attachments; arrange them logically so learners can follow the learning path easily.
• Track learner progress: See who has completed lessons and who is still in progress, enabling timely support.
• Deliver a consistent learner experience: Use unified themes, fonts, and colors across the entire course for a seamless, professional feel.

💡 Small tip: For courses with many lessons, standardize themes, fonts, colors, and slide layouts to create a consistent experience and help learners focus on content without distractions.

👉 You can refer to the guide on importing different content types to support adding quizzes and assignments into Ourdemy: https://ourdemy.com/support/help-center/manage-learning-content

Conclusion

Today, creating slides and online lectures is easier than ever. With Gamma or Canva AI, you can design professional slides in just minutes—complete with clear structure, harmonious colors, and relevant visuals.

When combined with Ourdemy, you not only manage and store your entire course professionally but also ensure content security, easy sharing, and seamless updates. With AI tools and a robust course platform already in place, you can focus entirely on teaching and developing high-quality content.

With this workflow, you can confidently turn ideas into engaging online courses, reach thousands of learners, and deliver a professional, memorable learning experience. Are you ready to start this journey?