5. Common Challenges
Challenge 1: My work samples are
controlled goods/I’ve signed an air-tight
Non-Disclosure Agreement.
Challenge 2: But, I don’t have time to
create a portfolio…
Challenge 3: Where do I begin?!
Hello, Everyone! I’m Ashley Chiasson, an Instructional Designer and Consultant with about 7 years of professional experience. Today I’ll be talking about how to build your e-learning portfolio!
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.
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?
How many people are interested in eventually changing jobs, roles, or moving into a freelance or contracting role?
Have you ever been asked to share work samples and/or your portfolio?
Whether or not you could relate to these questions, portfolios are the cornerstone for every e-learning professional.
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;
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. The road to independent-contractorship is paved with a whole lot of hustlin’, and you will never stop playing the sales person. However, you will be able to reduce the amount of hustling you do, and will likely enjoy the luxury of being able to CHOOSE who you want to work with. Over the past year, I’ve been able to focus on working with clients I’m passionate about doing work with instead of scooping up anything and everything just to pay the bills.
That being said, 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, and this could be your reality too!
Freelancing isn’t always pretty. My first foray into freelancing held a goal of paying off my student debt. There was no focus aside from that.
I hopped on freelancer.ca, undercut myself BIG TIME, and took on some of the worst jobs ever. After paying off my student debt, I vowed off freelancing because “I was better than that.” Mind you, I took on jobs that weren’t always a good fit for my skillset, and which certainly didn’t engage me. I also hated feeling as though I wasn’t of value. After a year off, I began to think about how I could take my passion of Instructional Design and become a successful freelancer. This is when I became focused, realizing that freelancing didn’t have to be synonymous with not feeling valued. I could do what I loved doing, for clients who needed my expertise!
Shortly after realizing this, I began building my portfolio.
I understand that building your portfolio can be challenging.
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
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 with clients predominantly in the Defense sector, 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?!
After wallowing for a bit and eking out some downtime, I 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 many of the small business books I had 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, were created in Articulate Storyline, and were the launching pad for my portfolio.
Moral of the story: When feeling defeated, challenge yourself to be creative!
The last time I discussed e-learning portfolios, I had a lot of participants ask about sharing work that isn’t legally allowed to be shared, and what I recommend to individuals experiencing a similar problem is to sanitize that sample!
As you can see in the example provided, sanitizing a work sample doesn’t need to be a huge undertaking. In this case, I removed the logo, changed the background, and changed the colour palette. The content for this organization is readily available online, so it’s not considered controlled goods; therefore, I was able to keep all of the existing textual content. For those of you who are restricted by branding AND textual content, I would suggest removing all branding and replace textual content with dummy text, and tada! You’ve sanitized your work sample!
Building your portfolio really doesn’t need to be a challenge. You just need to find some motivation and summon your creativity.
For me, the Articulate E-Learning Heroes Challenges were huge when it came to kickstarting my motivation. Half the battle is your own imagination, so the challenges were great. Each week, there would be a new challenge and prompt for submission, and each week, I would be blown away by the entries.
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.
My portfolio has grown considerably since I began participating in the weekly e-learning challenges, and 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!
A few examples of other places to get inspired:
Digital Magazines
Templates
Video Games
Design Websites
Make something your muse, and run with it! For example, one of the ELH Challenges was to create your own digital magazine template. These creations were inspired by existing digital magazines and they elements they consist of, and with a little imagination, I was able to bring together my own digital magazine, The Meadows.
Fear will only hold you back, and you really need to just let it go. What do you have to lose? If you would have told me three years ago that I would be standing here speaking in front of a large audience, many individuals here of whom I respect and idolize…I would have told you that you were out of your damn mind. I was the kid in university who would take zeros when an oral presentation was required, but I’m slowly conquering that fear.
When I first started building my portfolio and participating in challenges, I was TERRIFIED to share my work. In an industry with so many talented people, what authority was I to subject folks to looking at my work?! But once I began to let go of that fear, I was able to share my work, grow my portfolio, and grow as an e-learning professional.
Without being able to let go of fear, I would never have previously considered sharing silly interactions and glimpses into my ridiculous mind. Case in point – Artie. Artie and his story of single-parenthood was conjured up in my mind, and I spent hours labouring over a meticulous budget and gift giving game for him. At times I felt like I was losing my mind, but the finished product made people laugh and it was very well-received. Your harshest critic will always be you, and we all just need to get over ourselves if we want to be successful industry professionals!
For some, building out your portfolio may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t need to be difficult!
You can post samples to dribbble, dropbox, or google drive. I love sharing knowledge with others, so I incorporated my portfolio into my blog; occasionally I do show my work posts, and I have a portfolio section of my website that contains a simple WordPress plugin. It’s important to invest in yourself, so if you don’t have the time or expertise to easily add portfolio pieces to your website, pay someone who does have the expertise. For example, I spent about 5 hours of my time trying to figure out a WordPress plugin and finally conceeded to paying someone to do it for me…it took them half an hour, and only cost 30 dollars.
My current portfolio isn’t fancy, but it does exactly what I need it to do. Clients don’t want to view 500 full courses before deciding they like your work, but they do need to see some representation of your capabilities within the world of e-learning. Every client is different, so it’s important to consider a varied approach to your portfolio. What I mean by this is to include a representative sample of portfolio pieces – several work samples, several personal samples, perhaps some design samples if that’s something you’re good at. They need to believe, from your portfolio or discussions with you, that you are the right person for the job!
Once you have your portfolio built, promote yourself!
I wrote a book! Articulate Storyline Essentials. I really wanted to bring it to Learning Solutions with me, but we got a ton of snow the day the delivery was expected, and it wasn’t delivered until after I had arrived in Florida.
You can check it out on Packt Publishing’s website or on Amazon.com, and I’ll be doing a giveaway soon on my website: ashleychiasson.com
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 make some time, and show yourself off!
Does anyone have any questions?
The last few times I presented this topic, I got A LOT of questions about freelancing, so I figured I’d include some bonus information that may answer some of your most pressing questions. If you’re not interested in learning more about freelancing, feel free to head out, but please stick around if you are!
How to find work as a freelancer
Factors to consider when determining your rate
Working from home
