Hey y'all! My name is Sam and I'm an Instructional Designer working in tech. I'm also the author of Create your online course: a step-by-step workbook, and The Coding Workbook! Join me as I attempt to balance full-time work-from-home life and author life!
I did student teaching for one semester but did not pass and i have never formally taught as a teacher. I am still persueing a master's in education as i am currently still in grad school but i do not want to be a teacher anymore and would rather become an instructional designer instead would this be hard to do without any teaching experience?
Bless you so much, I am using this a template on how to focus during this time of transition. 5 skills, one for each day of the work week to focus on 💟
Thank you for the tips! They're super helpful! I work as a customer support lead for an education company and I've been interested in ID for a while now. I train new hires and I never thought about using the training materials I make to create a portfolio. Would you recommend someone interested in finding an ID job to invest in software like Articulate? (I have never used it before but some job listings require experience with this). Or is there any other software that you recommend?
Hi! Thats awesome to hear, sounds like you have some really transferrable skills for ID! I don't really recommend investing in Articulate, I think you can accomplish a lot by creating a free (or low-cost) website, and then adding projects like videos, blog posts, training outlines/curriculum, and training slide decks. However, if you want to get a bit of experience with Articulate, I'd suggest watching a few RU-vid tutorials and then signing up for a 1-2 week free trial to play around and create something using the software. Hope that helps!
And is there any books on how to do a needs analysis. I've done many but in terms of education and I would like to learn needs analysis in the business training world. Is there any templates you follow? I want to do an entire project from beginning to end, so that where I am. Or can you make a video on conducting a needs analysis? Thank you so much, Sam!
Hi Sam! I'm interested in book summaries over each book. Each book sounds very interesting! I'm just starting out my learning journey, but get the idea that those books are for more advanced ID. Is that true? What is the order of books that are more meant for beginners? Thank you for your content! I enjoy it so much!!!!
Hi! Congrats on your new journey! Thanks for the feedback - I'll definitely do summaries as I read them. For beginners, I'd recommend: 1) Map It by Cathy Moore (amzn.to/4cAp6xC) 2) Design for how people learn (amzn.to/3XbY9fm) And I haven't read these yet, but I think they could work for beginners, too! • Kirkpatrick's four levels of training evaluation • How to measure training results Hope that helps!
@@SamTaylorEd ok thank you for the recommendation! The first book I read is Julie Dirkson book, Design for How People Learn. It was really good book! I'll order Map it next! I know you have a book too. I want to get that too! I want to get so many books but I can only read 1 at a time!!! Thank you again for your content!
Hands down best video on how to create a portfolio on Google Sites yet! After various channels and hours of(informative and really creative) adverts for those channels services, I finally found Sam. Sam knocked it out the park in less than 20 mins and I built the skeleton for my own portfolio right along with the video. Thanks Sam!
Oh I love that you brought us along your working day! I got questioned by a recruiter how I would work with people. I didn't answer it well, as I had too little experience. This kind of content really helps me to picture the scene! Thank you!
Congrats on transitioning to a new career! Sounds like you will have a lot of transferrable skills. I would say its important to practice your writing skills, so consider trying to write a few blog posts a week (maybe about topics in IT!) Hope this helps!
Hello , I just hit the bell of your channel, I am a novice, I would like to know an audio editing tool that makes my accent sounds native in English and French especially. Thanks.
Thank you so much for subscribing! I don't know of any tools that can change an accent, but I have heard of people using Text-to-Speech generators if they don't want to use their own voice for a video or voiceover. Hope that helps!
I prefer mid size companies 300-500 employees like mine because you get the best of both worlds: you have the benefit of having structure but are not confined to a specific task or role. I notice that those very big companies 1000+ pigeon hole you and move very slow while start ups have you do so much that it’s overwhelming!
Great video! Do you normally have to do all the research yourself to build up a tutorial or blog post or slide deck for others to teach? Are you provided resources to help make things clear?
Thank you!!! And yes usually i do a lot of the research myself but if a SME has a deck or doc handy then I use that too! And lots of chatting with SMEs when i have a million questions lol. But i guess that's what keeps it interesting 🤣
@@SamTaylorEd good to know. thats a lot of responsibility and information to keep in your head to break down into smaller digestible pieces for people.
Hi @SamTaylorEd thank you for these videos! I just bought your teacher to instructional designer book yesterday on Kindle. It’s been very helpful! Question: Since the Articulate suite is so popular for a number of jobs, how proficient should one become in using this software before applying to ID jobs? Thanks in advance!
Hello! Thank you so much for your support! I would say if the job description asks for it, you should probably have experience building one or two courses/trainings with it (including creating the course modules, adding content, editing the style/structure of the course, navigating the course settings, etc.). I'd also suggest watching a few videos about how to use the software as you build. This could be done using a free trial of the software! Hope that helps!
Could you make a video about benefits? Health insurance is getting soooo expensive for US companies right now. Do you know anything about benefits by different industry? I suppose you could talk about tech benefits? I know about benefits in healthcare as I used to work in healthcare. I also read that on average, companies that employ more women, have higher premiums for their employees. In healthcare, as they usually have a higher percentage of women workers (mostly nurses) employees tend to have higher premium payments as a result. This is just from my personal experience working for a hospital system. They also had a tiered system for employees where those who made more also had to pay higher premiums, so even if you got a raise, you never really got that extra income.
Hi! Great question - unfortunately I am not qualified to speak on benefits at all! I still have to ping my HR team all the time to ask a million questions 🤦♀️ wish it wasn't so confusing!! As for other benefits, it really depends on the company. Some offer great other benefits like 401k matches and great maternity/paternity leave, but it really just varies company to company!
Are you able to share some of the companies you produced content for? I was about to enroll in a Master’s program…I’m now of the mind that I can build my own experience without it. Thanks for sharing your experience!!
I've worked at various tech companies of different sizes! You can definitely gain experience on your own, but both options are great depending on what works for you!
Great video! Especially since I am trying to upskill to a SR LED role or enablement role from my LMS Admin role lol Another thing I would add is to keep applying to jobs even if you land interviews because you always want something in the pipeline if an interview doesn’t land to an offer. The corporate hiring process takes longer than teaching interviews. Teacher interviews tend not to be more than 2 rounds because of the shortage, they are even hiring after just 1 round!
Love it! These are great tips for transitioning. One thing I always encourage people to take on roles in their schools that allow them to write PD and leverage that as a skill.
Would you say a portfolio in google sites like this would be appropriate to bring to/present in an interview? Or would they be looking for something physically in articulate360? I plan to learn Articulate fully but don’t want to pay for a subscription myself simply for the portfolio. I love how this looks. Love your content and appreciate the guidance - thank you!
Great question! In my experience a portfolio like this will definitely work. I would suggest only building something in Articulate 360 for an interview take home project (if you want to) because like you said, its expensive! Hopefully that helps! And thank you for watching!
Hi! I haven't used Motion app, but I would recommend to choose any platform that you like! There's so many out there and some might work better for you based on your personal preference! Hope that helps!
Hi! Thank you so much for making and sharing this video! Would you say that in your current role you work a set 40-hours a week, or does it vary depending on the projects you’re working on /managing?
Great question! Usually I average about 40 hour work week. Some weeks will be a bit busier if I am working on multiple projects or am helping other people with a project. Other weeks I am working solo on my own projects so can usually get through them quicker! Thanks for watching!
Hey Sam! Great video as always. I was wondering if you're aware of any success stories regarding remote jobs from applicants outside of the US. I'm currently in my first job search for ID/Training roles and pretty much binge watching both yours and Devlin Peck's content. Thanks in advance ;)
Hey! Thanks so much for watching! And yes I've worked with many IDs that weren't based in the US. There are a lot of companies that have offices in multiple locations (e.g. US, Singapore, Croatia), so it's definitely possible to be an ID outside of the US. I'd suggest using LinkedIn to search up ID jobs in your area - hope that helps!
I noticed that higher ed has the lowest starting salaries for IDs! I have a friend who transitioned from the classroom to a higher ed ID position! I think it’s a great starting point! But he plans to land a more corporate ID role in the future.
