Forum Discussion
E-Learning Design - How did you get started?
Hey Martin, I came in all ready to give my two cents, but Nicole Legault's response is spot-on on all points.
1) Take some courses or certification in Instructional Design. This will help round off your skillset. I took an amazing 3-day workshop called Instructional Design for New Designers by Langevin Learning Services and I can't recommend it highly enough. It changed my life and how I view training. They teach you how to do a training needs analysis, a task analysis, how to choose different presentation methods, etc. It's super practical and great workshop to give you good basic ID skills. Something else you might want to look into are courses on graphic design basics. Knowing how to do some cool graphic stuff (and even just basic things like removing backgrounds, cropping, adjusting brightness, adding filters, etc) will go a long way in helping you design great looking courses.
The one thing I would add on to this first bullet is that it's worth exploring a graduate-level master's or certificate. Once you get in the door, you'll have access to a lot of professors and colleagues who are already in the industry. Additionally, most programs have pretty active job boards as often organizations will reach out to the college directly to fill open positions. Even if you only take one class per term, I think it's a pretty valuable experience from both a networking and an educational standpoint.
Putting together a portfolio is a great idea too -- there are some really great examples from members of the community on this thread: http://community.articulate.com/blogs/david/archive/2014/08/08/show-your-elearning-portfolio.aspx
It's really nice to know that, when you're looking for a job, you can just fire off that link and it'll include everything: your samples of work, your resume, and your contact info. I think any organization that's serious about hiring will ask for samples and this will put you ahead of the pack.
Good luck and thanks for posting your question! It spurred some great discussion -- I really enjoyed reading how everyone got into the field.