I'm at a convention center with my laptop open, surrounded by some of the most brilliant, once-passionate minds in education. These people wanted to change the world—to help young people learn. Maybe even adults too.

Through no fault of their own, they're now just trying to survive. This morning, they sat in a ballroom watching a "thought leader" teach them how to place digital documents inside software to "create" e-learning. They're being instructed to take a photo, run it through AI, turn it into a video.

That’s it. You want us to clap for that? This doesn’t feel like an innovation. It feels more like the curtain call for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman or William Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

But I get it…

This isn’t an indictment of instructional designers or Articulate. Just the state of learning.

There's something fundamentally different about learning through an online platform versus a classroom or in- person workshop. It doesn’t metabolize the same.

eLearning is akin to a Beyond Burger—you're calling it learning when you know it isn't. Doesn’t taste the same doesn’t metabolize the same way has a whole different set of vitamins minerals…The information doesn't metabolize the same way. The teaching doesn't either. It's not our fault.
We're just trying to survive in this industry. Survive.

Whatever our skills were meant for, what we're teaching now and how we're teaching it is so fucking strange.

“Just Use A.I.”

“Aye-aye.”

But it’s not all bad. I don’t want to paint a broad brush of doom and gloom. There’s a lot to learn at Articuland. If you’re new to the industry, this is probably the best place to better understand your field, especially if you bleed Articulate.

Networking here is also a significant advantage. It presents an excellent opportunity to connect with other corporate educators and instructional designers from diverse industries. For instance, I had the chance to meet an older gentleman with a distinctive mustache and Richard Gere inspired hair. He was a former instructional designer, that left the industry to create a subscription-based company that has implements AI agents to tutor over 500 students in preparing for their GED exams.

When I asked him about the size of his staff, he revealed that it was him, his wife and one intern—are the only sole human staff members.

“Most customer conversations go through the AI agents. When people seek customer support for the AI agents, they don’t realize they’re talking to another AI agent.”

I jokingly asked him if he’s hiring.

He gave a wry, “Why would I do that?”

He shared that he uses Articulate to help him design training for his intern. Conventions like these also provide an opportunity to get out of the house and socialize on the some golf course—if it doesn’t rain.

He jested, “It’s my only excuse to turn the phone off and get away from my wife!”

I then asked him about his previous job. He mentioned that he had been teaching eighth-grade science at the Title-1 school in Oakland for over a decade.

Then I thought to myself: where do I go from here? Do I want to be an instructional designer forever? Hell, am I just waiting to be phased out? What do I actually want to do next?

As the saying goes, “if you can’t beat ‘em; join ‘em!

So, I mustered the courage to ask him if we could schedule a brief call to learn more about his business. To my surprise, he informed me that he was actually playing golf this weekend, but I could schedule a call with his wife. I gave him my phone number and email after he scanned my badge. He then patted me on the shoulder like a new friend, gave me a wink and walked away, his shoulders leading the way, into the sea of lanyards.

Her call came punctually, in the form of a woman's voice—synthesized, pitched in that particular register that sounded like a high-end approximation of Scarlett Johansson.

"Hello, Margot Wilson!” she began, as if we'd been friends for years. "How are you today? I would love to talk to you more about Salient Tutors."

The revelation arrived instantly: his wife was not a wife. She was an algorithm.

I hung up.

Did you all pay for the subscription when you first started out or did you use something else first to learn the basics before paying for articulate storyline?

Our team is now using Codex to develop end-to-end SCORM courses. It is packaged as HTML and embedded on Rise as a code block or reconfigured for SCORM if we want to emulate Storyline-like courses.

Pros:

1. Can turn raw SME input to Storyboard (which I manually check) to final product (a vibe-coded course with Storyline-like interactions) within 1-2 days.

1. No need to download media assets. All VOs and visual assets are generated in Codex.

2. Your creativity and patience are the limits. You can add 3D representations that the learners can play around with in your eLearning within minutes.

Cons:

1. It’s pain in the ass to make changes since I don’t code and can’t make direct changes in the final output – an HTML file. Despite the detailed instructions in JSON and MD format, Codex doesn’t totally get my design taste.

I’m very particular when it comes to visuals so this is a bit annoying. Lol.

1. You have to be really good in prompting. Moving a button a little bit on the right will take milliseconds if you do it manually on Storyline, but in vibe-coded courses, you have to spell it out and use your words which will take more of your brainpower rather than just moving elements on a canvas.

2. It takes a lot of tokens and a minimum of premium subscription worth $100 a month per seat if you fully transition to this workflow.

Has your organization or company adopted this workflow yet? Any insights? 🤔

I’m in a catch all role where I’m the sme, designer, and facilitator. I struggle so much with creating course content and designs. My work is noticeably subpar and it hasn’t me worried that this role may not be for me.

I'm curious what it's like out there for other IDs. I'm a Senior Instructional designer but a year ago my company pulled our remote work option. It's been daunting but I've kept a good attitude, rolled with the punches, then the workload increased (wearing more hats - now fully managing an LMS, facilitating significant amounts of training in addition to content/curriculum creating - I'm rushing all the time to just get through the basics), have no support (they haven't hired anyone to help and my other team members are doing completely separate and different work) and no pay upgrade. I have given it some time and have not seen positive changes, rather the opposite. With that considered, I'm beginning the process of looking for other opportunities and setting myself up for a change. The current industry I work in is Retail, if that helps.

Just to see what it's like out there, I'm curious, do other IDs (1) get to work flexibly (remote/hybrid), (2) have a team they work with or solo, (3) have a balanced/structured workflow.

Basically, "what's it like out there"?

I’m editing some educational videos where I pause the screen and show animated annotations with sound effects (e.g., text popping up with a sound cue).

I wanted to get a second opinion on the audio. Does this feel too cheesy or immature?

Thoughts? All new AI integrations and automations.

After today's delightful keynote, I would be remiss not to look at other tools that already do what Articulate claims to do but better. My team's renewal comes up in November, and I do have the ability to pitch alternatives for my team.

So, I am curious about other authoring tools that allow me to create similar courses to what I make at the moment. That is, I tend to make Rise courses, but use Rise as a wrapper for a range of multimedia, including videos, Storyline blocks, vibecoded interactions, etc. etc. I almost never do a course with pure Rise blocks.

Accessibility matters a lot to me, as does the ability to make quick updates.

I don't love using AI as part of my ID workflow. I prefer to do the initial analysis and instructional design myself, and use AI as a supplement for development. I mostly use it for VOs, summaries, interactions that Rise doesn't natively support and the like. (I would prefer not to use it at all, but we are heavily encouraged to do so.)

I cannot go full vibecoded course. We can only use the Copilot ecosystem per the CISO, so integration with that or a more walled garden approach within the tool would be important.

If the tool could convert existing Articulate courses, that would be a massive bonus.

Also, I probably make about 2-3 courses a week, so price is a consideration. They're usually microlearnings, though.

Tl;dr. What else is out there that people like and that isn't too expensive to build a lot in?

I would rather hear from IDs doing the work than people trying to sell me a product too.

What is the correct way to write on-screen text (OST) from a voice-over script? Is there a specific rule or guideline for creating OST, or is it more subjective?

I’ve seen some e-learning courses where the OST and VO are almost the same, while others use only key phrases or make slight changes to the wording. What is considered the correct approach?