Newbie

Hi Alison,

I was a high school teacher as well before transitioning to ID. The path that helped me transition was taking a summer internship on an ID team. I took the internship while keeping my teaching job. After about 6 weeks of the internship I was offered a full-time position with the company. After getting the full-time offer, I resigned from my teaching job. Good luck!

Hi Alison,

I'm another former teacher turned ID. I did an indirect path through corporate training, but your plan of getting a masters is more straightforward.

I wrote a post a few years ago with interview questions specifically for teachers switching careers to IDs. Check the comments too, as I had some other good ideas from readers.

https://christytucker.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/teacher-to-instructional-designer-interview-questions/

Hi Kyle and welcome here! I'm new here, too, but not to eLearning. It's good that you had an internship with the ID team because that'd surely help. Update yourself with some eLearning news sometimes and keep up with the loop. Good luck!

Hi Alison,

Welcome to the wonderful world of instructional design!  I think it's important to mention that if you intend to move into a corporate environment from education, you will find that designing is much different as are the expectations.  Have fun!

Hi, Alison: First, your sample. I like the illustration. Perhaps just use simple markers, instead of branching to another slide or layer. You don't have much content, which is why I recommend a simple marker interaction.

Are you interested in elearning specifically, or do you want to be more of a generalist ID?  If the former, I say the most important thing is to build something everyday and share whenever you can. Also help out on this forum. Thanks for your post. 

It's a good start.  I recommend rerecording the audio for items 1 & 2 as they are noticeably different from the other audio files.  Since 1 & 2 are likely to be the first slides your audience views, you'll want to make a good impression by having a strong audio.  I found these two files to be a bit muffled in comparison to the others.  Otherwise, well done.  Good Luck!

Hello there and welcome! Your design is a good start. I agree with Teresa on audio though. 

Hope you enjoy your time here and wish you the best of luck with your new pursuit! 

Hi Alison,

You have some good components - animations, audio, etc. Now it's just fine tuning. 

If you're using this in a class, then you are probably providing the upfront context to the students. However, if this is more of an eLearning style course with no one to provide context, you'll need to provide that in your SL course. The audio does sound different - as if you recorded it at different times and in different places. You'll want to get it consistent. If the #'s are connected, don't force the learner to go back to the home page after viewing each item but rather make it more of a story that flows. You also have a mix of clip art, avatars, and photographic people. I would suggest choosing a graphic style/theme and using it consistently.