Building a course

Content inside a program is nested three levels deep: modules group the material, lessons sit inside modules, and blocks are the individual pieces of content inside a lesson. All of it lives in one program app called Learning Materials.

Availability

Plan: the Programs switch on your organization’s subscription package controls whether Programs appears in the navigation. It is set by Lurno.

Permission: permission to edit programs, to add and change modules, lessons, and blocks. Permission to publish programs, to publish a lesson, a module, or the program itself. The AI authoring actions additionally need permission to use AI; without it the Ask AI and Outline with AI entries are simply not shown.

Don’t see this in your account? See Plans, permissions & modules.

What this does

A program’s content tree is: program → Learning Materials app → modules → lessons → blocks. Each of the three content levels has its own draft/published state, so you can build ahead of a live program and release material a lesson at a time.

Before you start

• Create the program first. See Programs overview.
• Or let AI build the modules, lessons and materials for you in one pass, then edit them here. See Create a course with AI.
• If your organization has sub-organizations, make sure you are in the right one before you create — a program belongs to the organization it was created in.
• Have your source material ready: outline, images, video, and any documents you want to reference.

Add the Learning Materials app

A new program has no content app, so there is nowhere to put modules until you add one.

1. Open the program.
2. In the left rail, under Apps, choose Add App.
3. Pick Learning Materials. It appears in the rail; select it to open the module list.

If the program already shows Learning Materials in the rail, skip this.

Build modules and lessons

1. On the Learning Materials screen, choose Add module, type a title, and press Enter or choose Add. Modules are numbered M01, M02, … in the list.
2. Select a module’s title to open it. If it already has lessons you land on the first one; if it is empty, Lurno creates a lesson called “New lesson” and opens it for you.
3. Add more lessons from the lesson editor’s outline column on the left — each module there has its own Add lesson entry, and the outline also has an add-module entry at the bottom.
4. Reorder by dragging. Handles are hidden until you hover the row: hover a module row for its handle, or expand a module with its chevron and hover a lesson for that lesson’s handle.
5. A module’s ⋯ menu carries Publish / Unpublish, Settings (title, cover, and the module’s own options), and Delete, plus an Outline with AI entry when AI authoring is available to you. Deleting a module removes every lesson and block inside it.

Fill lessons with blocks

The lesson editor is a three-column screen: the program outline on the left, the lesson canvas in the middle, and the lesson inspector on the right. On narrower screens the two side columns collapse into panels you open from the icons in the top bar.

1. Select the lesson heading to rename the lesson in place.
2. Hover the gap between two blocks and choose Add block for the quick list: Rich Text, Image, Video, True / False, Single Choice, Multiple Answer, Open Ended.
3. For anything else, use the Add block button under the block stream. That opens the Add Resource dialog with two tabs — Create New (every available block type, grouped by category) and Browse Existing (reuse a resource that already exists in your organization).
4. Edit blocks directly on the canvas. There is no separate save button: changes are committed when you leave a field, and a status indicator in the lesson’s meta row shows when a save is in flight.
5. Hover a block to reveal its controls at the top-right: a drag handle to reorder, a bin to remove it, and an Adjust with AI entry on supported types when AI authoring is available. Removing asks you to confirm, and past learner attempts keep the version they saw.
6. Media blocks upload in place — see Resources & media.

Use Preview in the top bar to check your work: Preview lesson plays just this lesson the way a learner sees it, Preview module walks through every lesson in the module.

Publish

Draft content is invisible to learners at every level, and each level is published on its own.

1. Lesson — in the lesson inspector’s status card, choose Publish. You’ll be asked to confirm. Unpublish takes it back to draft; past attempts are kept.
2. Module — from the module’s ⋯ menu in the Learning Materials list, choose Publish.
3. Program — from the program’s Publish rail item, clear the checklist and choose Publish Program.

The lesson and module controls are shown to anyone who can open the editor, but the server still requires permission to publish. If you don’t have it, the control is there and the action fails with an error. Only the program-level Publish Program button is actually hidden.

Editing an already-published lesson does not unpublish it. Changes to a published lesson are saved as a new version of the block rather than replacing what learners already sat.

Reference

Block types are grouped into categories in the Add Resource dialog.

Category	Types offered
Text	Rich Text (formatting, images, math)
Media	Image, Audio, Video, YouTube, Vimeo, Loom, Image Carousel
Files	Document (PDF, Word, and similar)
Embeds	Embed (generic), Figma, CodePen, Google Docs / Sheets / Slides / Forms, Canva, Miro, Notion, Airtable, Typeform, SurveyMonkey, Kahoot!, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet
Questions	True / False, Single Choice, Multiple Answer, Open Ended, Classification, Question Group, Matching, Ordering, Fill in the Blank, Cloze, Short Answer, Essay, Numeric, Hotspot, Drag & Drop, File Upload, Audio Response, Matrix / Grid, Annotation
Activities	HTML5 Activity, External Activity, Poll / Survey, Peer Review, Flashcards
Rubrics	Analytic Rubric, Holistic Rubric, Single-Point Rubric

Question blocks inside a lesson are graded as part of the lesson. Larger standalone assessments are built separately and attached to the program through its Assessments app — see Building an assessment.

Troubleshooting

There is no “Add module” anywhere. The program has no Learning Materials app yet. Add it from Add App in the left rail.

Learners can’t see a lesson you added. Check all three levels: the lesson, its module, and the program each have to be published. Then check any release window or drip rule on the module. See Schedules and release windows.

A block type you expected isn’t in the dialog. Not every type in Lurno’s catalogue is switched on for authoring. SCORM, xAPI, LTI, stock photos, and the code playground are not offered in the block picker today.

A reorder didn’t stick. The new order is applied on screen straight away and saved to the server after the drop. Reordering lessons or blocks tells you when that save fails; reordering modules does not — it fails silently and the old order comes back on the next refresh. If a module order looks wrong after a reload, drag it again.

Publish Program is missing on the program’s Publish screen. Publishing is a separate permission from editing. Ask whoever manages roles in your organization.

Publishing a lesson or module fails with an error. Those controls aren’t hidden when you lack publish permission, so the failure only shows up when you try. Same fix — ask for the publish permission.

Deleting a module warns about lessons. That’s accurate — deleting a module deletes every lesson and content block under it and can’t be undone. Unpublish it instead if you only want it out of sight.

Related

• Create a course with AI

• Programs overview

• Content library

• Resources & media

• Meetings

• Building an assessment