Welcome & Introductions

Hi everyone! I'm from San Antonio, Tx. I currently work in the insurance industry but am on an assignment with our Learning and Development team, where I help design videos and microlearning resources for our teams. 

I'm interested in learning how AI can support instructional design, especially when it comes to creating engaging learning content. I'm also excited to explore how these tools can bring new ideas back to my role.

This is Dallas my Goldendoodle. He keeps things fun and unpredictable! 

Hey there Everyone! 

My names David Esparsa and I am located in beautiful Northern CA. I am an Instructional Designer for Progressive Insurance. As an instructional designer, I help turn complex ideas into clear, meaningful learning experiences. I work with teams and subject‑matter experts to build training that actually makes sense to people, whether that’s through web-based courses, facilitator led course, job aids or interactive tools. Basically, I make learning easier, more engaging, and way less boring. 😁

I jumped at the opportunity to join this cohort because I know that AI is a growing initiative for many companies and I thought I'd get ahead of the game by learning as much as I can about the tools that are out there. I love to work smarter not harder. Plus it's cool to see the stuff AI can do and I'd love some tips and tricks from the experts. 

I have two fur babies, Diego (the Manchester Terrier) and Lord Vader (the Chihuahua). 

My name is Sean Stallings and I work for the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the Center for Teaching and Learning. I am a media specialist, and I primarily create eLearning content for some of our online courses. I usually work with power points or lecture videos provided by our SME's and create the content using these. I leverage AI (primarily Chat GPT) to help me accomplish this. I have been doing this for several years now, and have an AI prompting Certification though ziplines. I am hoping to learn to better leverage the AI built into the Articulate products. 

I have three dogs and a cat. Agatha (Giant Schnauzer), Harper (Mini Schnauzer), Duncan (Old Man), Marshmallow (The stray cat my wife brought home from work one day for reasons unbeknownst to me). 

Hi, everyone! I'm Larissa Sousa and I am a Senior Learning Designer at Sage, where I design and develop eLearning content, mostly focused on training for our accounting software products.

Recently a lot of my work has involved localizing our training for different regions, so I joined this cohort to learn more about how AI might support that process. (I also just enjoy learning about new tools and thought the cohort experience would be a fun way to do that.)

Also... I don't have any pet pictures to share, but thank you all for the dopamine boost in these intros! 🐶😺✨

My name is Angela Watts. I am a Senior Instructional Designer with Thomson Reuters out of Frisco, TX. I have been an instructional designer for over 28 years.  I spend 90% of my time in the Storyline products, creating interactive content that helps our accounting firms learn our software and earn the CPE credits required to keep their license. The other 10% is spent working with SMEs and fellow employees to gather the content for these courses.

Thomson Reuters has invested millions in AI not only to help users become more efficient but also to give our clients a competitive edge in accounting and law. I am taking this certification to better understand how to use Storyline's AI in my daily work.

I volunteer with a rescue foundation for reuniting lost pets with their owners. I have a passion for homeless pets and want to find them all homes! I have two rescues myself: Bailey and Riley. Bailey is an 11-year-old Basenji/Black Sheppard mix, and Riley is a 6-year-old Husky/Pit mix.  They are crazy about me, and I am crazy about them! Guess which one has the crazy and funny personality.

My name is Jennifer and I'm based in San Antonio, Texas. I work at USAA as an Instructional Designer on the Real Estate Operational Change Management team. My day-to-day involves designing training and curriculum for our frontline employees. We focus on ensuring that our training keeps regulations and USAA standards at the forefront, while also helping to streamline and simplify processes for them.

I joined this Certification Cohort to learn more on how to utilize AI. Many of our initiatives come to us fast and furious with quick turnaround timelines, and I'm hoping to leverage AI to help us be more efficient and effective in delivering high-quality training.

Looking forward to learning with all of you!

Hi, I'm Amanda Barker, an instructional designer at CDW based in Chicago. In the past, I have both designed and facilitated learning content, but I've shifted my focus more to ID so that I can take a deeper dive into available tools and gain more experience with them. Through this experience, I'm really hoping to improve my overall knowledge and skills when it comes to using the AI Assistant to make courses I create more effective and efficient.

Hello Cohort!

Donna Yager here, located in Cicero, NY. I am a permanent work-from-home employee for USAA Insurance and am an Instructional Design Senior. My role is mainly managing large development projects that are training courses for our multiple levels of Auto Non-Injury adjusters. I work with a team of 7 designers who work together to build the lessons necessary to make up the course.

I was asked if I'd like to be involved in this cohort and jumped at the chance. I would like to understand what it takes to use Ai within our development tools so I might be able to throw out ideas to gain efficiencies within our team.

Gee and Lilly are my tiny fur-babies, and Summer is my overactive large pitty/rotty mix.

Hi, I am Rob Heil an instructional designer with I-CAR in Appleton WI. I am interested in seeing how AI in Storyline can help our development team. 

Hi everyone,

My name is Kristen Havel, and I am an instructional designer located in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I'm excited to join this group and look forward to exploring Articulate's AI tools with you all.