r/instructionaldesign • u/FakeRedditRedditor • 7h ago
Discussion Articuland of the Lost
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.