Dear Instructional Designer

This episode, I am talking with JR Dingwall, a higher ed instructional design consultant. I'm super excited to have JR on the show to tell the story of someone who went freelance for a while and then decided that it wasn't for him.

This episode we are back with Wes Atkinson, Co-founder and Lead Technical Consultant at Appitierre Ltd, the makers of the Evolve Authoring tool and the Bloom LMS talking about Evolve as a potential tool.

This episode, I’m with Wes Atkinson, Co-founder and Lead Technical Consultant at Appitierre Ltd, the makers of the Evolve Authoring tool and the Bloom LMS. And we are going to keep on theme about the freelancer journey but with a bit of a twist, from the perspective of a vendor.

This episode I wanted to talk a bit about how I’ve built and continue to build my network.

In this episode, I want to share a bit more about my own toolset, in a few categories. We’ll look at business tools, productivity tools, and professional development.

This episode, I am talking with Devlin Peck, a recent instructional design graduate student who jumped into freelancing with both feet while still a student.

This episode, I am talking with Christy Tucker, an instructional design consultant who has made her name by thinking deeply about what good instructional design is and sharing those thoughts and her learning experiences via her blog. She’s also a frequent contributor the instructional design subreddit, which is where I met her. Today, she is going to tell us more about her journey into freelance instructional design work.

In this episode, I try my hand at answering one of the toughest questions around becoming a freelancer: How does that whole feast and famine cycle work?

In this episode, I take a walk down memory lane and talk about my journey into freelancing.

In this episode, I (finally!) wrap up season 3 and talk about the future of Dear ID.

In this episode, I sit down with Svein-Tore, the founder of H5P, an amazing open source authoring tool for creating elearning interactions.

In our last episode with Simon, we segue from using Adapt to the Open Source Way and how Instructional Designers can benefit by jumping in to open source projects.

Our second chat with Simon Date of King's College, London. We dive deep into "Why use Adapt?"

The first of three (I say four in audio) episodes with Simon Date, Adapt developer extraordinaire!

This episode, I talk with Zsolt Olah, one of my ID heroes, about two different projects that illustrate how context is king.

This episode, I sit down with our newbiest ID yet, Ellen Hayes, and we talk about her process building an online course for a student maker space.

In this teardown episode, I dive into the interactive video/simulation, Sortie en Mer (A Trip out to Sea).

In this teardown episode, I dive into the game-based one-page Adapt course from Sponge UK on following the rules of street fundraising.

This episode, I sit down with Leslie Sandoval, instructional designer of 11 years, and we talk higher ed and a project supporting faculty with online courses.

This episode, I’ve got a real treat: a cutting edge tech project from my friend, David Fusco!

This episode, I try something a little different! A detailed teardown of the interactive video, Will You Fit into Deloitte?

Season 2 of Dear ID is finally over! In this episode, I share some stats about my 2016 year of projects, takeways from Season 2's focus on tools and tech, and what's next for Season 3 of Dear ID.

In this episode, I want to gaze into the future and talk about three areas I think may be useful for other instructional design newbies looking to develop their skills or dive into a niche area.

In this episode, I make an argument for adding livestreaming to your toolbox to show and share your work without the commitment of a regular blog or podcast, but also staving off the isolation that can come with engaging in deep work.

In this episode I talk about game makers and why they might be a good option to help you start building learning experiences.

In this episode, I respond to a listener request for more talk about creating effective, interesting animated video. I could have gone high-tech, but instead, I challenge you to think about using PowerPoint for effective animated video.

Today, I sit down with Hadiya Nuriddin, an instructional design and training veteran, who now owns her own consultancy, Focus Learning Solutions. I was interested in having Hadiya on when I heard about her new venture FreshEye Reviews, where she’ll be focusing on simplifying the quality control process for organizations.

Piggybacking on last week's episode on learning to program, I discuss how we might carry over some of the principles of open source software development as a part of our solution-building toolbox as learning experience designers.

This episode, I talk about my coding journey and how coding helps us to solve more problems as learning experience designers.

Twine is an open source tool for creating interactive, non-linear stories. It’s a tool for interactive fiction and story game development. In this episode, I talk about how it might be used for prototyping and creating elearning.

In this episode, I talk about prototyping tools that I've used in the past, and why prototyping is a useful communication practice.

In this episode, I sit down with Joseph Suarez, a really awesome and excellent instructional veteran of 10 years, who I met on the instructional design subreddit. Joseph talks with us about how his toolset has enabled him to create some award-winning learning experiences and the importance of continuing to learn.

In this episode, I sit down with Cara North, instructional designer at a major state university. Cara talks to us about how she uses the LMS at her institution, paying attention to your technology needs, and finding the right tool for the job.

If you haven’t heard of it, Adapt is Adapt is a free and easy to use e-learning authoring tool that creates fully responsive, multi-device, HTML5 e-learning content using the award-winning Adapt developer framework. In this episode, I detail my experience developing a personal project using the Adapt Framework.

In this episode, I interview EJ LeBlanc, ID business owner, avid experimenter, and a real model for continuing learning as an instructional designer. We talk about the latest tool that EJ is adding to his toolkit, the Unity gaming engine.

I’m super excited to bring you my conversation with Jennifer Maddrell, the founder of the Designers for Learning, a non-profit dedicated to getting instructional designers hand-on practice through service learning. Listen in to learn more about this amazing opportunity to do real ID work.

In this awesome, anchoring conversation for Season 2, Craig Wiggins, major xAPI advocate and all around great guy, talks with us about how we can get back to the real root of instructional design, crafting solutions to performance problems, and how the xAPI encourages us to break out of our perhaps subtle, unconscious coupling of instructional design with elearning.

Season 1 of DearID is over! Long live Season 2!

Today, I’m talking with Ant Pugh, elearning business owner from across the pond. Ant shares the hows and whys of building a free email subscription learning course around creating great elearning for a business.

This one is for all of you Instructional Design subredditors who are teachers looking to break into instructional design. Listen in to get the scoop on an alternative journey from teacher to instructional designer.

Listen in on my conversation with Ido Abramovich, a technical trainer turned training business owner in Israel. Ido gives us insight into his growing training business, where he's made the move from full time employee to entrepreneur with a business partner and employees.

So several weeks ago, I wrote a blog post called, Steal this Idea: Push and Pull Systems for Marketing your Training. I really love the idea of of creating push systems as well as pull systems. In this episode, I examine the Highbrow model of subscription courses and how we might appropriate the model for our own uses as IDs.

This episode, I talk with Jed Esposito, an amazing ID I met in an ID social media group. He talks to us about making the transition from public industry to private industry and how to be the kind of ID who is known for getting stuff done.

In this episode, I talk with Jane Bozarth, instructional designer, presenter, and author. She gives us some really great tips on how to get our foot in the door to the presentation game.

Today’s guest is Ashley Chiasson, an incredible instructional designer, author, and presenter. Ashley talks us through yet another option for all you IDs out there: having a full time job, while also having a side business.

As a follow up to our interview with James Finder, I wanted to share some insight about side projects as marketing. If you're thinking that you can't fit blogging into your life but you want to help build up some business for yourself, consider creating some side projects as a way to market yourself.

Today’s interview is with James Finder, an ID I met on the instructional design subreddit. James is our first ID entrepreneur on the show. If you're thinking about starting up a business and striking out on your own, James shares valuable insight for this path.

Today’s interview is with Rachel Barnum, a really awesome instructional designer who I’ve followed on Twitter for some time now. Interested in ID roles that focus on face-to-face workshops? This one's for you!

Following our interview with Mel Milloway, I thought we could spend some time thinking about how to plan and track personal learning work and increase our chances of actually getting stuff done.

In this episode, I interview the fabulous, versatile, and prolific Mel Milloway. Mel talks to us about development work and her methods for practicing and trying new things.