See this post by Roshon Goode: "Degrees Don't Get You an IDOL Job, Experience Does."  To prove you have the experience, you need a portfolio. And to create a portfolio, you have to be working as an ID.

Or do you?

Building a portfolio is something I never had to think about in my 15 years as a classroom teacher. It isn't easy to know where to start! But the IDOL courses Academy takes you through each step of the process. When building a portfolio, most people use their past experience and past projects. But since I was coming from K-12 and wanted to move into corporate, none of my previous work samples would do.

Here are my suggestions and experience with building real portfolio pieces without having an ID job.

1. Reach out

Once I began my journey to becoming an ID, I told my...

The Show is the preceding event to The Learning Conference, which is happening online from August 3^rd to 5^th 2020.  They have got a fantastic lineup of speakers. If you have the time, you should join in the...

1. Get familiar with the major theories of how people learn.

Before you can apply a theory, you need to understand it. In most learning design graduate programs you’ll get to deep dive into learning theories like behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism and others, but you don’t have to join a graduate program to do this. IDOL courses Academy includes bite-sized modules on the major theories you’ll need to know as a learning designer. A good test for whether you’re familiar with a learning theory is whether you can describe it simply, with the kind of language you might use when chatting with a...

Published: June 29th , 2020

Episode: 20

Clint Clarkson, Founder at eLearning Alchemy

In this episode, I’ll be chatting with Clint Clarkson about feedback for instructional designers. In our industry feedback comes from many places. Being able to give and receive feedback is a skill. Listen to Clint share how to give and receive feedback like a pro.

If you are a new listener to Become an IDOL, we would love to hear from you.  Please visit our Contact Page and let us know how we can help you today!

Subscribe & Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don’t want you to miss an episode. I'll be publishing a new episode every two weeks and if you’re not subscribed there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!

Now if you’re feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too....

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you read these two words: design identity?

If you are thinking this is just an alternative way of referring to your brand or brand identity, you’re wrong. 

Here’s why:

Your brand is how people perceive you.

“A brand is the recognizable feeling a product or business evokes...They live in the minds of everyone who experiences them.”

---Brian Lischer

Your brand identity is how you want to be perceived and what you create to influence that perception (logos, color palette, etc). 

“Brand identity is the collection of all elements that a company creates to portray the right image to its consumer.”

---Deanna deBara

Your design identity is who you are as an instructional designer. 

 “Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.”

---Epictetus

To discover your design identity is to undergo self-discovery without the pressure to live...

We live in a digital world. If something good or bad happens anywhere in the world, it is likely caught in a picture or more than likely on video. Messages spread faster than ever before. We receive messages consistently, whether it is an email, text messages, or social media, there is something always trying to grab your attention.    

In a world where you are inundated with messages, how can you stand out among the crowd?

If you said branding, then you would be right!

We are used to seeing companies brand themselves. I am sure if you are an IDOL courses fan whether you follow the blog, Become an IDOL Podcast, or the Become an Instructional Designer and Online Learning Developer Facebook group, you recognize the green, yellow, pink, purple, and the fun logo. 

But how do you create a personal brand?
Personal branding goes beyond your logo or color pallet. It goes beyond your portfolio and its design. I have been on a journey to...

 Many aspiring instructional designers know and understand the concept of instructional design, but aren't quite sure of the software tools needed to achieve the results. There are several software tools I use on the job daily as an ID. In this blog, I will talk about the ones I feel every instructional designer should learn based on my personal experiences.

1. Articulate 360 is a one-stop collaboration tool for you to design, collaborate, and review eLearning courses. It includes two of the most popular course creation apps, Storyline and Rise 360. It also consists of the Review 360 app, which allows you to collaborate with others on projects. I particularly use Review 360 daily as a way for...

• I don’t know how to do any of this.
• I am too embarrassed to show my work to people.
• I’m not good enough.

Being new sucks.

You are just beginning to learn the rules that everyone else appears to have mastered. The list of things you don’t know seems never-ending. You are taking in as much information as you can, yet your output is subpar. Plus, you don’t get the inside jokes and are not even sure if you fit in.

Being new can be so uncomfortable, embarrassing, and sometimes demoralizing...except if you’re a toddler.

Then being new is liberating!

You get to be bad, really bad, at things, and still be proud of your efforts.

You get to experiment without worrying whether you look presentable doing it.

You get to fail miserably and repeatedly without fear of judgment.

Even when you literally fall on your face, you give yourself the grace to make mistakes and...

You are starting on a new instructional design project and just read the project outline. You are half-excited and half-worried that you may not meet expectations. You decide to silence that voice first. You get into your design space, and you start thinking: Okay, I got the learning outcomes, and the intended business goals but:

• I should probably follow what's on the books this time.
• "A" from ADDIE. That's my lifesaver.
• Let me google first what others might have done. It isn’t cheating because I am just looking for some inspiration. ;)

Let's face it. If you have done your instructional design homework, you have probably concluded there are a LOT of ID frameworks out there.  As part of the IDOL courses Academy, I got to take a dive into the 7 most commonly used instructional design models.

I thought : "That's it! I got into the backstage, got the tricks of the trade now, let me start designing and developing." I quickly realized I should be very selective in how I...

Anyone who has been in an active job search recently knows how frustrating it can be. As job seekers, we are playing a very serious game, against thousands of other seekers, and we don’t really know the rules the companies are playing by. We look for – we need – ways to ensure that every resume we send reaches the audience and makes an impact.

The Gatekeeper

Long ago, at the beginning of my career, the job search process was straightforward: you found a job listing in a newspaper classified ads, typed a resume to give your qualifications and appeal to the hiring manager, sent it to the address in the ad, and waited.

The significant shift came with the rise of internet job sites . These sites made it so easy to apply for jobs that companies were overwhelmed with the response. The same technology that caused the overwhelm was harnessed to filter applications so that only the most relevant or most qualified applications reached the humans.

This technology...