Freelance Development

Oct 26, 2011

Hello,

I'm trying to get a foot in the door in the area of freelance eLearning.  I wanted to start by doing a few projects cheaply (or even free) just to build up a portfolio. 

I don't want to mingle things with my current development work so I don't have high-end tools of my own but I was thinking of starting with Snap! by Lectora and building from there.

If anyone has any advice, tips, or can forward my info to someone in need of eLearning, let me know.

Dale Hargis

2 Replies
Mark Siegrist

Back when I was doing freelance work, I found a lot of work through craigslist. But beware - lots of clowns on there looking for cheap work. But, if you're just looking to build a portfolio I guess it can't hurt. The majority of my work came through my website - I wrote some tutorials/blog posts on Captivate variables (up to that time there was very little/no information available on them from Macromedia, so getting Flash to communicate with Captivate was a mystery to most). So whenever people would google for a Captivate and Flash elearning developer my blog/contact info would rank fairly high. 

Unfortunately, my web server was hijacked and malicious software was injected into my wordpress database and being served up, all without my knowledge until Google notified me. My site stats plummeted and I stopped getting work through it. But by then I had moved into management roles in my day job so I didn't want to take on any new freelance work so I didn't mind.

My point is: websites DO matter and can help you get clients. It definitely helped me get work. Another thing that I know helped me was that I was, back then (about 7 years ago?) one of the few 'Adobe Flash Certified Designers' in my state (per Adobe's website). So I had the right to use the logo on my site. A lot of people on forums bash certifications as unnecessary, but I found having that certification opened a lot of doors/gave me instant credibility with clients. Of course, I wasn't a flash 'designer' at all - I was a web developer (actionscript) and elearning designer/developer. But prospective clients don't understand/care about elearning design skills - they often focus on the tools they think they want used.

Leslie Therese Blanton

Hi Dale,

To build up your portfolio, and maybe even some good karma, check out the LINGOs Global Giveback Competition 3: http://ngolearning.org/globalgiveback/default.aspx

Tom Kuhlmann wrote about it in his Rapid E-learning Blog a while back http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/heres-how-you-can-change-the-world/ and there's an article in the eLearning Guild's Learning Solutions magazine at http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/650/lingos-announces-third-elearning-global-giveback-competition.

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