E-Learning Design - How did you get started?

Hey Martin,

 I started in the biological sciences. I minored in education thinking I'd use teaching as a back up plan. I thought I was going to be a marine science researcher. I taught public school science one year and ran as fast as I could in the other direction. Several years into a very flat career in marine science I needed something new and found instructional design through a life coach. Outside of general education principles I have no formal Instructional Design training. Often times, this field finds you, not the other way around.

Over the course of my career I've done e-learning, course design, and assessment development for everyone from at risk 5th graders to people handling radioactive material. I've done freelance work, worked for big textbook company, small gaming companies, worked at a fortune 500 and in the public sector. At this point nearly everyone needs some kind of e-learning developed.

If you want to build your skills, learn to break down complex tasks and set them out on simple easy to accomplish steps. Find where there are gaps in steps that a beginner might not understand how to jump to the next step. Never mind the bells and whistles, this is the core of what we do.

Learn to write in plain language so everyone can understand, not just people who are masters at their craft already, keep accessibility and language learners in mind. Your audience is global, including people who are learning the language you write in, people who use assistive devices such as screen readers and their keyboard to navigate. Try to build courses that work for everyone.

Build your soft skills too, learn to listen and relate to others. You often work with subject matter experts who may not understand what you really do, may not have allocated time to answer your questions, or who fear that once you write the training, they will be out of a job. They may or may not be good at explaining what they do.

Always be eager to learn, after all you need to learn things so you can explain them better. Wish you the best of luck!