Change the same thing in every lesson of my course
Some changes are not about one lesson. You've decided every practical exercise should sit in a quote box, or your qualification has been renamed, or you spelled a term two different ways for a year and now you'd like to spell it one way.
Opening each lesson to make the same small change is the kind of job that eats an afternoon and then eats another one. Ask for it once instead.
How to ask
Say what you want changed and which course it's in:
In my Maternity Nurse Level 3 course, change "care plan" to "care record" in every lesson.
Bernard finds every lesson it appears in and shows you what he found before touching anything: which lessons, how many times in each, and the sentences themselves with the change made, so you can read it in context rather than imagining it.
If it looks right, tell him to go ahead. If it doesn't, say so - nothing has happened yet.
Patterns, not just words
The useful version of this is formatting. You can describe a shape rather than a phrase:
Every line that starts with "Try it:" should be in a quote box.
Bernard works out the pattern, shows you three or four examples of what it would look like, and applies it to the whole course. This is the difference between a formatting pass being a two-minute conversation and a two-day job.
It goes live when you confirm
Course lessons work differently from the rest of your site. Your pages sit in a private draft until you approve them (How do I approve or undo changes?) - lessons don't. A confirmed change reaches your enrolled students the next time they open the lesson.
That's exactly why the preview comes first and why Bernard won't write anything until you say so. Read the preview as the real thing, because it is.
Undoing the whole pass
If you look at the result and change your mind, say so:
Undo that change to the course.
The whole pass goes back together, and every lesson returns to the exact words it had before - not a tidied-up version, the original text.
Two things worth knowing. If you've since edited one of those lessons yourself, Bernard leaves that one alone and tells you which, so a correction you made afterwards is never wiped out by an undo. And if you only want one lesson put back rather than all of them, ask for that lesson instead - each one keeps its own history (Add a lesson to my course).
When it won't change a lesson
A lesson has a size limit on its written notes. If a change would push one past it, Bernard skips that lesson and names it rather than cutting your words off at the end. You'll be told, and you can shorten that lesson yourself and run the change again.
The prompt
“In my [course name] course, change [the old wording] to [the new wording] in every lesson. Show me what would change before you do it.”
Press Copy, then paste it into your AI and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard first - a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI.
Questions people ask
- How many lessons can it do at once?
- A hundred in one go, and it carries on from where it stopped if there are more. A course with 169 lessons is two goes, not 169. You don't have to do anything special - Bernard just continues until it's finished.
- What if it changes something I didn't want changed?
- Ask him to undo it. Every course-wide change is recorded as one batch, so putting it back is one instruction: "undo that change". It restores every lesson to exactly the words it had before, not an approximation.
- Can I see what it will do first?
- Yes, and by default that's all it does. The first time you ask, Bernard shows you which lessons match, how many changes are in each, and the before-and-after of the actual sentences. Nothing is written until you say go ahead.
- Does this go live straight away?
- Yes, and this is the important difference from the rest of your site. Course lessons are not held in a draft - a change reaches the people enrolled on your course the next time they open the page. That's why Bernard always shows you the preview first and waits for your approval - the preview is the approval step here.
- Can it do formatting, or only words?
- Both. Swapping a word is the simple case. It can also do things like putting every line that starts with "Try it:" into a quote box, because it can match a pattern rather than a fixed phrase. Describe the pattern in your own words and let Bernard write it.
- What if I've edited a lesson since?
- The undo leaves that lesson alone and tells you which ones it skipped. Your later correction is never quietly thrown away - if you really do want that lesson put back too, you can restore it on its own.