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How to Build Your E-Learning Portfolio
- 1. How to Build Your E-Learning Portfolio 1 Photo Credit: David Anderson
- 2. I’m going to give you some ideas for how to build your portfolio… 2 but first, some questions! ???
- 3. The Importance of the Portfolio 3 • Highlights capabilities • Acts as a visual resume • Increase job offers
- 4. Common Challenges 4 • My work samples are controlled goods/I’ve signed an air-tight Non-Disclosure Agreement. • But, I don’t have time to create a portfolio… • Where do I begin?!
- 6. E-Learning Heroes Weekly Challenges Photo 6 Photo Credit: David Anderson
- 10. Building out your Portfolio Photo 10
Editor's Notes
- Hello, Everyone! I’m Ashley Chiasson, an Instructional Designer and Consultant with about 6 years of professional experience. Today I’ll be talking about how to build your e-learning portfolio!
- I’m going to give you some ideas for how to build your portfolio, but first I have some questions for you! By a show of hands, how many of you have an e-learning portfolio? Have you ever been asked to share work samples and/or your portfolio?
- In my opinion, there are three main reasons why having a portfolio is important: Your portfolio highlights your capabilities, specifically with visual technologies; It can act as a visual resume; have you ever had a Subject Matter Expert review your Word storyboard and they just ‘can’t visualize’ it? You know that the next phase is developing the content and media assets, but the SME just can’t get past the storyboard phase…This problem is similar to the one prospective clients encounter when trying to visualize how you and your abilities could work for them and their needs; And it can lead to an increase in job offers. Once prospective clients can SEE what you’re capable of doing, their confidence in your abilities will increase, potentially leading to more job offers and money in the bank! Once I began to build up my portfolio (which is still pretty sparse, to be honest), I saw a dramatic increase in the amount of prospective clients I had. Over the past four months, I’ve been able to reduce the amount of hustling I do and have been more selective, focusing on working with clients that I’m passionate about doing work with instead of scooping up anything and everything I can just to pay the bills. Therefore, I would consider investing time in building my portfolio to be a direct correlation with an increase in my quality of work life and overall job satisfaction.
- Building your portfolio can be challenging, I get it. Maybe you aren’t legally allowed to share your work samples Maybe you just don’t have time Maybe you don’t know where to begin My hope is that by the end of this session, you’ll have some ideas and be inspired and motivated to work on your own e-learning portfolio.
- Before taking the leap into full-time independent contractor-ship, I knew that I needed some sort of portfolio. I had been freelancing part-time for several years, and was getting tired of the “can we see your portfolio?” question. At the time, I had a full-time job, and all of my coolest work samples were classified as controlled goods; I wasn’t able to share any of my professional work, and I felt defeated. I had worked for this organization for over five years and couldn’t take away any of my best work to use in a portfolio?! Then I slapped myself in the face, got serious, and created my first two samples. The first was a tabbed interaction with hotspot popups designed to teach you how to bathe a cat. I’m a crazy cat lady, and when in doubt, go with what you know! I didn’t really know how to bathe a cat, but wikihow came to the rescue with some hilarious illustrations, and that simple tabbed interaction is still a hit with clients. The second was inspired by all of the small business books I had recently read; I wanted to share brief reviews, so I created a hotspot-based interaction that linked to brief book reviews contained within scrolling panels. Both of these samples were very basic in terms of technological prowess, but they were the launching pad for my portfolio. Moral of the story: When feeling defeated, challenge yourself to be creative!
- The E-Learning Heroes Weekly Challenges, prompted by David Anderson, are a great way to build your portfolio. Each week, David posts a new challenge and asks participants to think creatively and give their best shot at addressing the challenge. Participants link to their submissions and users can provide comments. The E-Learning Heroes Community is a supportive environment, and comments tend to be positive or constructive in nature. The weekly challenges are a great way to see what your peers are capable of doing and get ideas for how you can apply similar approaches in your future projects. I’m going to briefly show you some weekly challenge submissions from some of the E-Learning Heroes, and links to the full interactions and the individual’s website are provided on your worksheet.
- My portfolio has grown considerably since I began participating in the weekly e-learning challenges – While I haven’t been able to participate in every challenge – yet, I’ve contributed when time has allowed. The greatest praise I have for the weekly challenge is just that; it challenges me to think outside of the box and create interactions I may not have previously considered creating!
- Jackie Van Nice is a regular participant in the weekly e-learning challenges; while her portfolio has many samples from work she’s done for clients, she has been able to elevate her portfolio by including creative samples using Articulate Storyline. Her German drinking game template was even featured in another weekly challenge, challenging participants to steal her template and create their own games!
- Gemma Henderson always ups the ante when she participates in the weekly challenges. Her entries are always visually engaging and forward thinking. She always makes an effort to step outside of the box to create engaging interactions that will delight her audience, and, in my opinion, these challenge entries have given her personal portfolio a creative edge.
- For some, building out your portfolio may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t need to be difficult! Before becoming an Instructional Designer, I dabbled in web design. For me, it seemed easiest to display my portfolio on a website. I chose to go the self-hosted WordPress route, and tend to incorporate my portfolio pieces into blog posts to give my readers more of a behind-the-scenes look into my process. However, there are several E-Learning Heroes who have developed portfolio templates, and for anyone working in Articulate Storyline, these templates are a great way to populate your portfolio with minimal effort on your part! The first template was developed by E-Learning Hero Paul Alders and the second was developed by Allison Nederveld. Links to these templates, and their individual websites, have been provided on your worksheet. Both of these templates allow users to easily create a visual resume, including a section to house your portfolio or work samples!
- Hopefully you now have more clarity as to why an e-learning portfolio is so important and how you can easily create one – remember, your portfolio can provide you with the freedom to choose work you’re most passionate about, so don’t sleep on creating one! I look forward to seeing some new participants in the weekly challenges and to seeing some new portfolios. Does anyone have any questions?