Course Library
Browse our library of planning courses
21st Century Storytelling: Video for Planners
This course will give you motivation to create video content, and give you practical, affordable tips to be heard among the online noise.
Storytelling for Planners
This course will teach planners how to adapt proven storytelling methods employed by creative artists for centuries. We will cover the storytelling applications to analog and digital outreach methods.
Conceptual Drawing for Planners
In this course, we will learn effective ways of drawing as a means to communicate design ideas and explore digital tools that support traditional drawing.
Mobile Drawing Apps for Planners
This course explores three affordable mobile drawing apps and how each might facilitate the planner’s creative process.
Writing Master Plans, From Start to Finish
In this course you’ll learn how to approach a master plan—starting with concept development and community voice, and finishing with the mechanics of organizing and expressing ideas.
Mastering Mailchimp
In this course, we will review the Mailchimp email-publishing platform and create a simple, engaging e-newsletter.
Writing a Press Release
At the end of this course, you will feel confident in establishing your audiences and crafting language that provides the most impact in your press releases.
Digital Publishing for Planners
This course identifies popular digital publishing methods, and explains tradeoffs between user-friendly self-publishing tools and premium hosting services.
Leadership in Planning: Strategic Decision-Making in the Public Interest
At the end of this course, you will understand how to turn planning theory into practice in the real world.
External Relations for Planners
This course teaches customer service concepts, skills, and strategies to reflect well on planning organizations, and also make planners more effective in their work.
Managing a Planning Organization
At the end of this course, you will understand how to motivate and inspire staff; what steps to take to deal with unmotivated personnel; and how to manage an office as part of a larger organization.
Blogging About Planning
In this course we will review how blogs are used as planning tools to educate and engage participants in community decisions.
MetroQuest Public Involvement Software: In Practice and In Action
This course provides an introduction to working with MetroQuest, what it helps planners achieve, and some of its most important features and capabilities. The course also presents a series of case studies to demonstrate the results MetroQuest has achieved for a wide range of planning projects.
Producing Engaging Documents
Learn to combine text and graphics into a coherent document. At the end of this course, you will be able to identify all the elements of a document, understand their purpose, and use them effectively.
Editing for Sense and Accuracy
This course reviews approaches and tools to make editing routine and useful. At the end of this course, you will know how and when to edit. You'll be able to set up a style sheet, apply it to a document, and refine your work to create a polished document.
Writing for Planners: Documents that Work
This course reviews the different types of documents planners are called on to write—from one-page memos to complex master plans—and apply a simple writing approach that ensures the document's points are complete, compelling, and accurate.
Crafting Engaging Email Newsletters with Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the leading internet-based email creation programs, and this course will lead you through the process of establishing an account, creating a branded template for repeated use, and crafting compelling content using text and images.
Building Websites with Squarespace
Learn how to use Squarespace to create simple yet dynamic and effective websites.
Managing Multiple Social Media Platforms with Hootsuite
Learn how to manage your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts—all under one roof.
Building Websites with Tumblr
Learn how to create simple and effective, yet dynamic, websites using the popular blogging service Tumblr.