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Netflix and Build, An Untapped Source for Portfolio Topics

Uncategorized Feb 10, 2022

In Season 2, Episode 2 “Stress Relief” of The Office, we watch Dwight Schrute heat up the door handles, break the locks, and start a small fire because “Powerpoint is boring. People learn in all kinds of ways, but experience is the best teacher.”

 

I happened to be rewatching this show during my first cohort with IDOL courses Academy when a lightbulb hit. 

Dwight is attempting instructional design! Albeit, poorly. Traumatizing employees to get a point across is far from best practice. 

But my lightbulb moment didn’t stop there. So many sitcoms about workplaces are filled with topics one could use for a portfolio build!

Take The IT Crowd, a British comedy about an IT department. A running joke in the show is that they always answer the phone in the same way:

 

A very rough Google search tells me that an IT Specialist in the US makes $20.45 an hour. If they have to answer at least ten phone calls daily and all of them start...

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Doing it Messy - An IDOL Mentor’s First Portfolio

It’s human nature to compare ourselves to others, especially in new situations like the first week in the IDOL courses Academy. People can discourage it all they want. But when you haven’t found your personal mile markers, it’s far easier to look at someone else’s map.  

Here’s my current portfolio

Two years of polish and I still feel like it needs work. Just the other day someone pointed out a typo in my About section. But even with imperfections (that I see!), I'm proud of it and grateful I worked so hard to build it up.  

 

But if this is your first cohort, you’d be comparing yourself to the wrong map.

And that’s what I told my mentees this week. 

Here is my first portfolio

After eight weeks and one badge, this is what I had to show for it. 

This is how I got my first remote ID job.

It needs so much polish—and a facelift—but I am proud of Mandy 2020. 

 

I was in...

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Adding a Little Bit of Spice: Preparing for an ID Job Interview as Non-Native English Speaker

  • I do not know.
  • I am not sure.
  • My English is not good enough.

Any of these sounds familiar to you as a non-native English speaker? You might have the double burden of imposterism.

The idea of a job hunt was a scary and blurred future event back in March 2021, when I graduated from the IDOL Courses Academy® sixth cohort. I couldn’t start the application process right after the cohort ended, but when I started the job search process eight months later in November, I began by reading all the related materials in the IDOL Courses Academy® Interview section, starting with Jay Lash’s The Resume Game. I deep dived into instructional design blogs, journals, the Become an IDOL® Podcast, and the latest research and best practices, such as the Learner Engagement Summit organized and facilitated by Anna Sabramowicz, in the field. I got hooked on Janette Wilcken’s The Job Search Journey on IDOL Blogs, in which she shares three practices that she found helpful...

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MOVE! Or You Will Be Moved

 “Life will only change when you become more committed to your dreams than you are your comfort zone”  - Billy Cox

Get UP! Move!

Move from what?

- Move from that comfort zone!  Because you know what you need to do to move forward, but you're scared and only doing just enough to get by when you can be doing something extraordinary to reach on to the High!  You hear what I’m sayin! MOVE YOURSELF!  I know right now jumping into it  you’re scared, you’re afraid, you can’t see the outcome, your mind is telling you ‘what if I can’t’… I get it.  But once you jump into it, you create an experience that can take you farther than you could even imagine.  I’m telling you… You Have to MOVE, You Have to GET IT because if not then somebody else will and that’s...your... Opportunity...TAKE IT, EMBRACE IT, CREATE IT AND GO GET IT!

 

Testimony of a Former...

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Volunteering: ID Experience Through Non-profits

Most people trying to break into the field of Instructional Design know that having a portfolio is essential. A portfolio helps you showcase your design skills, how you put together a learning solution and, if you have a good case study, it can help you demonstrate how you solve problems. 

However, building a portfolio without an actual client is challenging. In her blog post, Kristi Oliva talks about how she built a portfolio without an actual client, and members of the IDOL course Academy are urged to get a volunteer client as part of the DoItMessy Challenge. If you don’t know where to start, you can get some ideas from this video on how to get a volunteer client for your portfolio projects.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t get a volunteer client. That’s mainly because I’m from an older cohort where this idea wasn’t pushed yet. Instead, I focused on perfecting my portfolio only to realise that it wasn’t enough for the hiring...

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PEP TALK: Failing Forward to Help Achieve Your IDOL Dreams

 

Trying to take a drink from a fire hose. 

That is how I felt when I first joined the IDOL courses Academy

The content was coming at me so fast and furious, it was hard to keep up. But if there is one thing I have learned over the last three cohorts of being an IDOL, the only way to learn is to dig in just like learning anything else. 

After spending years in public education, I find myself having to practice what I preached. I used to encourage the #doitmessy way before I knew it as a hashtag. When I coached student reporters on how to write journalistically, I would encourage them to write down whatever was going through their minds and accept that it would be their worst version. Because the beauty of learning isn’t in the first draft, it is in all the editing and iterations that follow.

 

FEEDBACK FEELS LIKE AN F-WORD

Although I have experience encouraging learners through their worst versions of their work, it doesn’t stop my...

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The Job Search Journey

 It goes without saying that the job search can be a daunting process. Some may describe it as a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, but since I had to work so hard to get to the “ups”, I prefer to describe it as a long journey with steep hills and deep valleys. I learned early in the process that making a career change was no stroll in the park.

After I enrolled in the sixth IDOL courses Academy cohort in January, 2021, I found it difficult to put all of the time and effort that I needed into developing my skills as an IDOL as I juggled my teacher responsibilities. I wondered when and how I would ever find the time to do a serious job search including answering recruiter contacts and interviewing. The thought of another short summer leading to yet another year in the classroom, and putting off my career change, just felt wrong, so I took a giant leap of faith and officially resigned from teaching at the end of May. 

My last day working as a teacher was...

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ID Bookshelf: Part 2

A few months ago I wrote a blog post about my top 3 book recommendations for anyone new to the Instructional Design field. I absolutely loved those books and I learnt so much from them. But to be honest, there had been some other books that I found less of a value despite the hefty price tag. I wanted to read more, but after that disappointment, and with so many books to choose from, I needed recommendations from real people.

So I reached out in my IDOL community and asked members to recommend the one book that influenced their Instructional Designer thinking the most. With just one book to choose from their libraries, I thought this way I could get really the best of the best reads. 

While I am yet to read some of them, I wanted to share them with anyone who’s as interested in ID books as I am. In this blog, I share 5 recommendations from other IDOLs and one from Dr Robin Sargent, founder and CEO of IDOL courses Academy, along with their reviews.

Enjoy the list.

...
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Virtual Interviews: Tips and Tricks for Acing Them

We are all aware of the fact that Covid-19 has changed the landscape of pretty much everything; we are all doing things much differently than before. One of the things that have changed is the fact that many more people are, or want to,  work from home. A recent study by Pew Research Center found that nearly 71% of Americans are currently working from home and more people now are leaving their brick and mortar jobs in hopes of scoring a remote position. Additionally, many industries collapsed or had to close leaving many people unemployed. Currently, in America, there are 7.7 million people unemployed according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This means many people will be faced, or have been faced already, with completing virtual interviews. 

Let’s talk about how to manage those virtual interviews so that you can ace them and land a job!

I remember my very first virtual interview. I assumed we would all have our videos on; I was camera-ready. When the...

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I’M AN IDOL? Becoming an IDOL was never on My Radar

Growing up, I wanted to have an impact on the world - to forge connections among us. I’ve traveled many roads in search of the avenue that suited me. I dreamed of the stage - of having a platform of my own. I admired entertainers, social-justice-minded-ministers, and teachers. Ministry was quite a platform, so I applied to Seminary. I sought a stage when I pursued Hollywood both through comedy and radio. I became a Certified Drug & Alcohol counselor, and I even wrote a book. None of these scratched every itch I had.

At thirty-three years old I earned a California Adult Teaching credential and began teaching addiction and recovery classes to inmates in the county jail. I brought trauma healing circles to state prisons, and I felt I’d found my calling! I loved teaching and facilitating groups. I loved working with people whose lives were troubled, and walking with them as they found the light. I taught for eight years before our school lost its contract with the...

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