I have been in the instructional design field for almost 10 years. I am well versed in Articulate and Camtasia. I want to make myself more marketable and improve my skills... but I'm not sure exactly which skills to develop. Any recommendations? I have access to LinkedIn learning and want to take courses I think would be most beneficial.
It's not about a course or which courses. If you are good at development tools, then select an area to focus on that is not about development. Articulate developers are all your potential competitors, neighbors, friends and colleagues but not necessarily a potential future client. Your clients (if that is your purpose going forward) wants and needs learning technologies that can be integrated and implemented by you, they want core competencies directly linked to learning/courses but as mini-modules, just in time learning (stop thinking 45 minute elearning modules), they want a platform that will supplant their existing LMS, think of performance measurements that you can provide, etc. Become a partner or be certified by another vendor doing metrics/ROI/measurements. Add MBTI, DISC or Tilt360 certified or any other certification. Having said all of that, if you want courses, do javascript, xAPI, or become an expert in the data mining/data visualization world via LRS and similar.
Become unique, focused and specialized until you have that down cold. Then you come back to your course design and development because by then it will all be different because you can now see through another perspective. Best wishes.
Focus on instructional design. Anyone can learn the tools, but using them to create truly effective learning is hard and astonishingly rare. If you master how to use the tools to create training that goes beyond content delivery ("telling") and instead creates opportunities for learners to practice the skills they are learning ("performing"), you will be creating training that is head-and-shoulders above that of most of your peers.
3 Replies
It's not about a course or which courses. If you are good at development tools, then select an area to focus on that is not about development. Articulate developers are all your potential competitors, neighbors, friends and colleagues but not necessarily a potential future client. Your clients (if that is your purpose going forward) wants and needs learning technologies that can be integrated and implemented by you, they want core competencies directly linked to learning/courses but as mini-modules, just in time learning (stop thinking 45 minute elearning modules), they want a platform that will supplant their existing LMS, think of performance measurements that you can provide, etc. Become a partner or be certified by another vendor doing metrics/ROI/measurements. Add MBTI, DISC or Tilt360 certified or any other certification. Having said all of that, if you want courses, do javascript, xAPI, or become an expert in the data mining/data visualization world via LRS and similar.
Become unique, focused and specialized until you have that down cold. Then you come back to your course design and development because by then it will all be different because you can now see through another perspective. Best wishes.
Focus on instructional design. Anyone can learn the tools, but using them to create truly effective learning is hard and astonishingly rare. If you master how to use the tools to create training that goes beyond content delivery ("telling") and instead creates opportunities for learners to practice the skills they are learning ("performing"), you will be creating training that is head-and-shoulders above that of most of your peers.
Hi Maggie,
We've got a couple articles here on E-Learning Heroes that talk about essential ID skills. I think you'll find them interesting! Here they are:
And since you mentioned making yourself more marketable, I thought you may also be interested in these articles:
I hope you'll find what you're looking for in those articles! :)
This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.