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E-Learning Challenges
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How I Became an E-Learning Instructional Designer #469

DavidAnderson's avatar
6 months ago

What Instructional Designers Do #469: Challenge | Recap

Have you ever tried explaining your job to friends or family, and all you get are those confused looks? Even though our industry is booming, titles like “Instructional Designer” or “E-Learning Designer” are still pretty much a mystery to most folks.

It usually leads to a bunch of questions: What kind of education did you need? What exactly do you do? What technologies do you use? Do you build those compliance courses I have to take? And, of course, what do you love about your job? 

Now, explaining all that can be a bit of a challenge, but it’s also a great way to show off the wide range of skills we bring to the table. And demystifying our profession is what this week’s challenge is all about.

🏆 Challenge of the Week

This week, your challenge is to share an example that explains what you do as an e-learning or instructional designer. Your example can be anything from a simple static graphic to a complex interaction.

✨ Share Your E-Learning Work

  • Comments: Use the comments section below to link your published example and blog post.
  • Forums: Start a new thread and share a link to your published example.
  • Personal blog: If you have a blog, please consider writing about your challenges. We'll link to your posts so your great work gets even more exposure.
  • Social media: If you share your demos on Twitter or LinkedIn, try using #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can follow your e-learning coolness.

🙌 Last Week’s Challenge:

Before you share your e-learning origin story, check out the drag-and-drop interactions your fellow challengers shared:

Drag-and-Drop in E-Learning RECAP #468: Challenge | Recap

👋 New to the E-Learning Challenges?

The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.

Learn more about the challenges in this Q&A post and why and how to participate in this helpful article

Published 6 months ago
Version 1.0
  • Hi all! This is my first Articulate E-Learning Challenge woohoo! This was a fun one to start with. I have been an Instructional Designer for 2 years and started off in elementary education. I wanted this project to show what led to my career in ID and briefly explain what I do.

    I created everything in Storyline and put it together like a video. The audio & music was created in Camtasia and used as the project's "playlist". Because of this there's no option to pause. I will probably revise the build in a future iteration to ensure it has a pause option!

    https://360.articulate.com/review/content/177f9cb2-f08f-408e-ac5c-b634ec5de3d2/review
    • Ron_Katz's avatar
      Ron_Katz
      Community Member
      Kirsten, welcome to the challenges. The video was fun and informative and well designed. The use of one of the built in Articulate characters worked well against the various IRL photographs. Looking forward to seeing more fun projects from you.
    • CieraCarr-d9521's avatar
      CieraCarr-d9521
      Community Member
      Very nice presentation Kirsten! We have pretty similar paths to ID. I was an elementary teacher for 10 years and journeyed into it about 1.5 years ago after needing a change. I love it here too!
  • Hey gang, thanks a ton for your demos this week! So, funny thing—I figured out about a day into the challenge that I totally mashed up two separate challenge topics I had in mind. Sorry for the broken promise in the title.

    Anyway, I've had this theory that there are two kinds of folks in these challenges: the ones who just roll with the title, and the ones who skip the title and follow the challenge prompt. That theory pretty much held up this week. You guys rocked it anyway.
  • Hi everyone! I don't know why, and how it works, but at first it was difficult for me to explain to my friends and family what I do at work. Probably it's because my close ones have mostly only encountered one format of learning - face-to-face, usually in the form of training sessions or written instructions. Just for fun, I prepared an example that shows how this explanation sometimes feels :)

    Now I can show this mini-course to all my new acquaintances when they ask what I do.

    https://360.articulate.com/review/content/367b90f1-d485-4be8-97be-bb9ba7922118/review
    • KirstenOssa-cf3's avatar
      KirstenOssa-cf3
      Community Member
      Great work! I LOVED the Fire Safety one! Such a great use for that Office clip, informative, creative, humorous. Awesome!
  • Hi everyone! My journey into instructional design began with a memorable experience teaching my twin son to read using the interactive story program Reader Rabbit. Little did I know, this early encounter with storytelling and educational software would ignite my passion for creating engaging learning experiences. Looking forward to sharing more about how this journey has shaped my path in e-learning!

    https://360.articulate.com/review/content/5163d223-9120-4793-b0cd-c60a6196fa24/review
      • HillaSchlegel's avatar
        HillaSchlegel
        Community Member
        Thank you, David! I'm glad the drag-and-drop storyboard concept worked well. Managing the crowded slide was challenging, so I appreciate your feedback.
    • Ron_Katz's avatar
      Ron_Katz
      Community Member
      Hilga, this was wonderful from start to finish. Design, layout, backgorund music, ideas. Wow. Great work.
      • HillaSchlegel's avatar
        HillaSchlegel
        Community Member
        Thank you, Ron! I'm delighted you enjoyed the design, layout, music, and ideas. Your always positive feedback means a lot to me!
  • TimHillier's avatar
    TimHillier
    Community Member
    I started in eLearning design as I was responsible for Paramedic continuing education and it was getting more difficult to get face time with staff. This project was done to allow paramedics to interact with an IV pump without having to do face to face training. We ended up using it for over 2000 paramedics saving 2 hours of face to face time each. it is not as instructive as it could be in this demo as it is not new information, just practice but it functions as the device does.

    https://360.articulate.com/review/content/3afed466-e7bc-4551-8e35-d26026bce993/review