Build Your First Lesson
A practical walkthrough for creating a lesson that teaches, checks understanding, and responds to learner choices.
This walkthrough is the simplest real-world pattern for using Berdee well:
- Introduce the idea
- Let the learner interact
- Check understanding
- Respond based on what happened
Example use case
Imagine you are building a short phonics activity:
- Scene 1 introduces the sound.
- Scene 2 asks learners to choose the correct picture.
- Scene 3 gives feedback and a next step.
That small flow already uses the core strengths of the product.
Prefer to follow along click by click? The Build your first quiz question tutorial builds a one-question lesson from a blank canvas to a score, with a screenshot for every step. Every tutorial also has an Add this lesson to my account button: it copies the finished lesson, pictures and all, into your lessons, so you can open it in the studio and see exactly how each step was done, or change it for your class. See Add a Tutorial's Lesson to Your Account.
Step 1: Create the lesson
Click New lesson from anywhere in your workspace, then Start from scratch. That is the whole step — you land in the Studio on an empty canvas, and the lesson is called Untitled lesson until you rename it from ⋯ → Settings. Give it a name that will still make sense later, such as Long A Practice or Intro to Fractions, whenever you are ready. The full walkthrough of that dialog — including templates and palettes — is in Creating a Lesson.
Your new lesson opens with a default structure that includes:
- an opening scene for the learner starting point, and
- a closing scene that already shows learners their score and wraps the lesson up
This gives you a working foundation right away instead of an empty project.
You will not see publishing warnings on a lesson you have not started yet. Berdee waits until you have placed your first widget before it starts checking the lesson over — see Preview and Test a Lesson.
Step 2: Set up your scenes
Use the scene panel to shape the learner journey.
- Rename the opening scene so its purpose is obvious.
- Add more scenes for each part of the experience.
- Keep related scenes next to each other — and if they should share the same background, instructions, or branding, build a layout and apply it to those scenes (see Layouts).
Good scene names are functional, not decorative. Listen and Look, Pick the Right Answer, and Try Again are usually more useful than Slide 1, Slide 2, and Slide 3.
More detail: Scene Settings
If you want the editor layout explained first, read Studio Overview.
Step 3: Add the content widgets first
Before adding logic, place the content learners need to understand the task:
- A text widget for the instruction
- An image widget for a visual reference
- A button if you want a clear next step
- An audio or text-to-speech widget if learners should hear the prompt
This is the easiest way to avoid overbuilding. Start with the learning moment. Add logic only after the content makes sense on its own.
More detail: Widgets and Widget Settings
Step 4: Add one interaction that matters
For your first lesson, pick one meaningful learner action. Examples:
- A multiple choice question
- A dropdown answer check
- A text input response
- A dropdown under a numbered diagram
- A matching or sorting activity
The goal is not to use every widget. The goal is to pick the format that best matches the learning task.
Step 5: Decide how feedback should work
Now choose how the lesson should respond:
- Move learners to a new scene when they press a button.
- Submit answers and branch differently for pass or fail.
- Reveal feedback only when a condition is met.
- Increase a score or progress variable after a correct action.
This is where Berdee becomes more than a static canvas.
More detail: Events, Actions, and Conditions
If you want practical event patterns you can copy, read Interaction Recipes.
Step 6: Use variables only when they improve the experience
Variables are powerful, but they are most helpful when they make the lesson clearer or more personal.
Useful first examples:
- Track a learner score
- Store whether a hint has been used
- Show a learner name or class-specific message
- Unlock a later widget after an earlier action
More detail: Variables
Step 7: Preview the full flow
Use preview to test the experience the way a learner would move through it.
Preview helps you answer practical questions:
- Does the opening scene make sense?
- Are instructions visible at the right time?
- Does feedback appear when expected?
- Do the next scenes feel intentional, or abrupt?
- Are you asking learners to do too much on one screen?
When possible, preview from the opening scene before you consider the lesson done.
A strong first lesson usually looks like this
- 3 to 6 scenes
- one clear learning objective
- one or two interaction patterns used consistently
- shared visuals handled by a layout applied to the scenes that need it
- logic added only where it improves clarity, feedback, or pacing