Why & How To Participate in the Weekly Challenges on E-Learning Heroes

Did you know that every week here on E-Learning Heroes our very own David Anderson challenges community members to build mini-projects around a different theme? Well, if you didn’t—now you do! Keep reading to find out why and how to participate.

Why participate?

There are so many great reasons to participate in the E-Learning Challenges. Here are a few:

• Grow your skills. Whether you’re new to e-learning or a seasoned professional, it’s important to continuously grow your skills to stay up-to-date with current practices and trends. Participating in the weekly challenges not only allows you to build projects that might be outside your comfort zone and get feedback from others, but it also gives you a chance to see their work and glean inspiration from it.

• Build your portfolio. Even if you’re not currently looking for work, it’s important to create and maintain a portfolio. After all, you never know when an exciting opportunity might pop up! One challenge with e-learning portfolios is that often the e-learning courses you create for work are confidential and therefore can’t be included. The challenges give you an opportunity to create a variety of projects you can show prospective clients and employers to showcase your skill set. 

• Expand your network. While some people participate in the challenges more sporadically, many of the participants are the same from week to week. Joining in the challenges is a great way to get to know other e-learning professionals and build relationships with people who can help you grow your skills and advance your career.

• Boost your visibility. When organizations are searching for e-learning designers, the internet is the first place they’ll look, so establishing an online presence is key. Participating in the challenges regularly is one way to boost your visibility and increase the chances that your name will come up in search results.

• Have fun. When you’re building courses for clients, you can’t always do things exactly the way you’d like to. The challenges are a great place to let your creativity run wild and have a little fun.

How to participate

Now that you know why you should participate, you might be wondering how to join in. It’s supereasy! Just follow the steps below:

1. Check out the challenge article

Hover over the Learn tab in the navigation bar and scroll down to E-Learning Challenges.

This will take you to the E-Learning Challenges hub, where you can click on the current week’s challenge—which is always featured at the top of the page:

And if you’d like to participate in a previous week’s challenge, you can do that too! Just open the full list of challenges and click on one that interests you.

2. Read the challenge description

Take a minute to read through the challenge and get a feel for what it’s about. Often there are a couple of examples to get your creative juices flowing.

3. Create your project

Once you’ve got a handle on the challenge, it’s time to start working on your project. You can spend as much or as little time as you want on it—so no need to create a full-fledged course or stay up all hours of the night getting it done. Just sit down and see what you can bang out in the time you have—whether that’s 30 minutes, an hour, or half a day!

4. Add a comment

When you’re done, simply add a link to your project in the comments section of the challenge article. Easy-peasy!

Not sure how to generate a link to your project? If you’re using Articulate 360, simply publish your course to Review 360 and paste the share link in the comments box. Otherwise, you can also publish your course for the web, upload it to a web server, and share that link. It’s up to you! 

Here are some resources to help you generate a link to your project:

• Rise 360: Publishing a Course to Review 360
• Storyline 360: Publishing a Course to Review 360
• How to Get an E-Learning Course Online

That’s all there is to it! From there, you can check out other people’s challenge entries and leave feedback if you’d like. But once again—there’s no obligation!

And if you want to increase the visibility of your entry, you can start a new thread in the discussion forums, write about it on your blog, or share a post on social media with the dedicated hashtag: #ELHChallenge.

5. Check out the recap (optional)

About a week after David posts a challenge, he rounds up all the entries in a separate article to highlight all the projects people have shared—to give them maximum visibility. If you didn’t have time to check out the other entries, the recap is a fast and easy way to do that. 

To access the recap, you have two options:

• Go back to the challenge article and click on the recap link he’s added below the article illustration.

• Go to the E-Learning Challenges hub and click on the recap article directly. It’ll appear below the featured article with the same illustration as the challenge, but with a restart icon instead of a trophy icon:

Challenge	Recap

Wrap-Up

So what are you waiting for? Head over to the E-Learning Challenges hub and join in on this week’s challenge. You’ll be glad you did!

And remember to follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.

This article is part of our E-Learning 101 e-mail course, a series of expertly curated articles that’ll help you get started with e-learning—delivered right to your inbox. You’re only a click away from becoming an e-learning pro! Sign up here to enroll.