Starting a Learning Design Business
Hello E-Learning Heroes community! I'm Erin from Toronto, Ontario Canada. I'm an instructional designer, currently in the process of opening my own business (website coming soon!). I have some ideas on next steps, but I would love to hear from anyone who has launched their on instructional design business. What did you do to market yourself?Organising project phases
Hi there! I'm curious to learn how others organise the workflow when creating E-Learning content. I personally find kind of challenging the final revision, in which I need to check that everything in the content is well and adjusted. I was thinking in creating a checklist that could be used as a support but I don't really know what kind of format could really be useful... any idea? How do you usually check that everything is perfect right before delivering?✨ Friday Fun Prompt: What’s Your “Dream Build”?
It’s Friday, so let’s daydream a little… If you could build any e-learning project, with no limits, what would it be? We all have that one idea that’s been in the back of our minds… maybe it’s too big, too niche, or you’re just waiting for the right time (or tools). 🎯 Share your “dream build” in the comments! This could be: A concept you’ve always wanted to explore A course you’d create if tools/time weren’t a constraint Something you started but never finished (yet!) 💬 Bonus: What’s holding it back, and what would help you get started? Can’t wait to see what’s on your e-learning wish list!🌍 Passport Challenge Recap: See What We Accomplished Together 🎉
✨ All badges are now live on profiles! A huge thank-you to everyone who participated in the Passport Challenge. It’s been incredible to see both new and familiar faces jump in, try new things, and engage with the community in fresh ways. From welcoming new members to tackling weekly challenges and sharing examples, you really showed up! Together, the community earned over 1,600 badges during the Passport Challenge. 👏 🌟 Community Highlights A special shout-out to some standout contributors: Most examples shared: Emmanuel_Kegler Most weekly challenges completed: Kate_Golomshtok Most active in replies: Silverfire, ThierryEMMANUEL, MeeraLynn-UK, Caitlin_B Most “Best Answer” replies: JudyNollet 🎉 Challenge Results 🥉 Tier 1: 3+ Badges Earned Congratulations to everyone who wrapped up the challenge with at least 3 badges—amazing dedication! KendalRasnake-1, Silverfire, Seb_Daubert, PhilMayor, eelizabeth, JanetCC, KatelynDore, JHauglie, jveedubs, SandyMyers, LeeMillardButlr, ClaireBogue-155, Chris-Hurst, BarryHollembeak, SMcNicol, lcarl, chell1948, FelixFranke, KarineMorris669, DanThornton, ChelseaYoung-6f, smous, samxuan, AsbjornReinhold, HVfb0f498d-053b, jeremykelley78, ShernellHolmes, CarolynKeilman, KristinaGaskins, SimonRayCBR, JenWeiss-38f01c, IrisSchlabitz, JenniferThom012, KrisShenenbe782, Mb06, RandyV, TracyGriffith-d, ChrisOMalley, hannahrad22, JoeDey, kimmm, RamonTalavera-0, RehanTT, MarianeTremblay, JulieBaker-ad32, RhondaRolf-1090, SBP_Inc, AdamShepherd79, JohnCooper-be3c, TaniyaAhuja, swri, ElizabethPat123, ErinShaw-ccb1f9, RomanieRoach-e9, SyedAmjad-Ali, DianeBullock-32, PhilFoss, kaitlinmurray, BeckWilliams, Ange, KellyBerezinski, AshlyHart, ShandaKrueger, amalialm, SafeTeamAcademy 🥈 Tier 2: 5+ Badges Earned Congrats to these members who earned 5+ badges—each of you earned an entry into our Articulate swag raffle! 🙌 AK6, AmitPadyal-fcb9, AndréanneChrisHodgson, CydWalker_mwh, DaisyWoods-2947, DanBoylandUK, Ekaterina_V, Emmanuel_Kegler, GolfPrincess, HillaSchlegel, HoneyTurner, JodiSansone, JudyNollet, Kate_Golomshtok, larryvanwave-ff, Lori_Morgan, Marie-Pierre701, MeeraLynn-UK, Michelle_Brooks, MichelleKiefer, MrugeshJani, Nedim, RonPrice, Stephanie, Thomas_Shayon, ThierryEMMANUEL, Tie 🌟 Globetrotter: Tier 3 (8+ Badges!) These community champions went above and beyond! 🎉 You’ll receive a special Globetrotter badge + shareable LinkedIn graphic, and you were entered into both the Articulate swag drawing and the Grand Prize drawing: AbigailVettese, Caitlin_B, Donna_Wilson, Emily02, JenLynnRusso, Jonathan_Hill, KayleneWance, PaSchl, VickyAttridge, Alankrita 🥁 Congratulations to Our Prize Winners Winners were selected through a random drawing from all eligible participants. Articulate Swag Winners AK6 — Fanny Pack Caitlin_B — Fanny Pack CydWalker_mwh — Tote Bag ChrisHodgson — Tech Bag MeeraLynn-UK — Hoodie 🎥 Grand Prize Winner: Fujifilm Instant Film Camera AbigailVettese — Congratulations! I’ll be reaching out to all prize winners soon to collect shipping details. 💬 Your Turn: Share Your Passport Challenge Takeaways As we close the Passport Challenge, we’d love to hear from you: What was your favorite part of the Passport Challenge? Which activity or badge pushed you to try something new? What kinds of challenges, badges, or community activities would you love to see next? Thank you again for making this challenge such a success. This community thrives because of you. 🌍💙We Appreciate You 💖
Valentine’s Day is almost here, and we couldn’t let it pass without saying thank you. This community is full of people who show up, share generously, and support one another, and that’s what makes this space so special. We’re really grateful you’re here. 💛 If you’d like to spread a little community cheer this week, here are a few easy ways to join in: 💌 Give a shout-out to a fellow member or share what you enjoy about being part of this community in the comments. 📣 We’ve attached a few optional shareable images if you’d like to post on other platforms (like LinkedIn). 🗳️ Cast your vote in our Code Block Build-a-thon. It’s a great way to recognize the incredible work members have created. 💡 P.S. Our weekly challenge is all about Valentine’s-themed e-learning examples. If you’ve created one, we’d love to see it! However you choose to participate (or even if you’re just reading along), thanks for being part of what makes this space so great. 💖Are you an "e-learning team of one"? 🤔
Hey E-Learning Heroes, and welcome to our new forum, Exchange Best Practices! 🎉 We added this forum because we know that your expertise extends far beyond what you do with our products, and we've heard from lots of members that you love using this community to network with other e-learning professionals about a wide range of topics in the E-Learning Industry. We hope this becomes your go-to space to start conversations about anything that's on your mind in the E-Learning industry, even if it extends a bit beyond what you do with Articulate's tools. We're excited to see discussions, questions, and idea-shares around everything from... How you work with SMEs on their first draft of an e-learning request How you approach creating a portfolio to support your e-learning career How you think about infusing your e-learning courses with adult learning & pedagogical best practices... And so much more! To help grease the wheels and kick off interactions within this space, I thought I'd ask a starter question: Would you describe yourself as an e-learning team of one? Do you work as a generalist managing everything from needs assessments to storyboarding to publishing courses on an LMS, or do you work with a group of collaborators who manage different steps in that workflow? If it's the latter, what do those collaboration flows look like? Let us know in the comments—our community team is selfishly interested in learning more about you, but it's also our hope that with prompts like these we can help surface for you other members who work in similar ways so that you can find the right people to network and collaborate with. Excited to read your responses!How does your organization support different ways of thinking and working?
For the neurodivergent folks in L&D… Lately I’ve been thinking about what it’s actually like to build learning experiences with a neurodivergent brain, ADHD in my case. Not just how it influences my design decisions (as mentioned in my previous post), but how it shapes the experience of doing this work inside a team. For me, neurodivergence shows up as a kind of heightened sensitivity to flow, clarity and cognitive load. It helps me spot moments where a learner might lose their place, or where a step needs more framing to feel safe and predictable. That part has become a real strength. But there’s another layer I don’t see discussed much in our field: How well do our teams understand the way our brains work? Not in a clinical sense, more in the everyday reality of collaboration, feedback, expectations, and creative problem-solving. Things like: having time to process before diving into solutions getting clear checkpoints instead of vague “keep going” feedback having tools and structure that reduce mental friction balancing flexibility with predictability For some of us, these aren’t preferences. They directly affect how well we can design. So I’m curious to hear from others who identify as neurodivergent, in whatever way that shows up for you: Do you feel like your strengths and challenges as a neurodivergent designer are understood in your team or workflow? And how does your neurodivergence influence the way you approach learning design itself? Share only if you feel comfortable. I know these conversations can be personal. But I also think they make our craft stronger, because the more we understand our own brains, the better we design for everyone else’s.Fun Animated Timer for Gamification Projects
Hi Articulate heroes, I wanted to highlight one very fast but fun-looking way to create timers for interactive projects. I've learned about this way from "Gamification Series; 05: Creating Tension with Timers." You can check out these amazing webinars Gamification series, and there was a few different ways to add timers to projects. I used it in my recent project "Cooking Frienzy" - Jeopardy-style cooking-game. (btw you can check out the full game: Cooking Frienzy So, here are the steps: 1) Create / find a "timer" picture - it could be any image with transparent background what works for your theme (in my case it is "Pomodoro" timer, made with AI help, saved as .png ) 2) Add this image as a picture (insert an image). 3) Go to Animation tab 4) Choose Exit Animation - "Wipe", go to "Effect Options" - "From Right". Set the animation timer for whatever time you need (10 sec., 30 sec., 1 min etc.) 5) Set triggers to what will happen after the timer is done (animation completed): i.e. jump to the next slide, show "result-fail" etc. 6) Preview and adjust if needed 🤞
