What a year!
This year, I started teaching instructional design full-time, and I left my full-time job as an Instructional Design Librarian. Of course, I remain library-adjacent. I train and consult with librarians in instructional design and elearning development, and I develop elearning for libraries and similar institutions under my company Lone Pine Learning.
I realized that I found my blogging voice, so I renamed this site to Instructional Design on a Shoestring. I’m all about open education and doing the best design with what I have – which is usually a budget of zero dollars! The new blog name reflects my design philosophy, and hopefully resonates with my readership.
In 2018, I got married, I read 70 books, bicycled 1,600 miles, and became an officer in my bike club! Yep, this has been a great year. Here are some other highlights from 2018.
Top Five Posts of 2018
Here are the top five posts from this year by views:
- Hosting Your Captivate or Storyline Courses for Free
- How to Become an Instructional Design/Elearning Librarian
- Instructional Design Librarian Starter Kit
- Get Started with H5P
- 20 Apps in 60 Minutes (For Educators)
Bonus: This video I created for my students inexplicably became very popular on YouTube: Creating a Drop Down Menu in Captivate.
Many of the posts I wrote this year were really for my students. I popped them onto my blog in case anyone else found them useful. It’s so great when people do!
Best Things I Read and Listened To
I regularly update my list of things to read, watch, and attend. I most recently added a new elearning podcast that I’ve enjoyed listening to.
My big discovery this year is Elearning Scenario Design by Anna Sabramowicz. You may already know Anna through her work – she’s half responsible for Broken Co-Worker. If you don’t know Broken Co-Worker, go check it out right now! It’s great!
Anna’s podcast is super informative, very thoughtful, and she is a wonderful podcast personality. Each episode is relatively short, 15-20 minutes, making it a perfect listen for your afternoon walk or commute. She walks her listeners through her thought process, making many of her episodes great examples of how to show your work!
My best ID-read of 2018 was Leaving ADDIE for SAM by Michael Allen. Quick read, and a very helpful reframing of practical rapid design for instructional designers. I also really enjoyed Design for the Mind by Victor Yocco.
Some of my favorite non-ID reads were Land of Lost Borders by Kate Harris, about her incredible bicycle trip along the Silk Road, and Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers books, which begin with the story of a motley crew on a ship that punches wormholes. I also really liked The Sound of Language by Amulya Malladi, about an Afghan woman’s immigration to Denmark, where she befriends a widower and takes up beekeeping, and What Should Be Wild by Julia Fine, a coming of age story à la Pushing Daisies.
I had a fantastic 2018, and can’t wait to see what 2019 has in store! Happy New Year!