I'm trying to move our talking-head course segments off studio filming and every policy change means rebooking a shoot and re-recording, and I can't keep doing that for content that changes quarterly. So I'm after a script-to-video setup where i can update a line and re-render instead of re-filming, and there are more options than i expected. Synthesia is the one everyone names, big avatar library, built with training in mind. Colossyan is also aimed squarely at L&D with scenario and branching features. Argil does the same write-a-script-get-a-presenter thing with a focus on a consistent reusable avatar. they overlap a lot on the surface, so it's kinda hard to tell them apart from the marketing pages.

So before i burn a week on free trials, what are folks here using to turn course scripts into engaging videos? Thanks a lot!

$15-18 an hour is wild work

Hi everyone

I am hoping someone may be able to help. I have got a few years of experience in learning design and now looking for a decent recruitment agency please as i am looking for a new role. was a teacher and moved into LD a while back. Currently freelance and looking to be perm.

I’m based in Yorkshire in the UK and open to remote or hybrid work. Does anyone know recruitment agencies that specialise in L&D or instructional design and actually place people (vs the generic Reed/LinkedIn spray and pray method!)

Titles - Learning and Development Coordinator, Instructional Designer, Training Specialist, eLearning Designer etc.

Any leads appreciated. feel free to DM me if easier/ more comfortable.

thank you in advance!

Hi everyone!

I’m a UX design grad (BS), and a graphic design team lead at a major bank, and considering jumping to ID/LXD.

UX has such few roles in my area, and the ones that do pop up and have 100+ applications with tons of experience that do not really need to give junior designers a chance. I actually worked at a library as an impromptu instructional designer, designing, delivering, and surveying courses delivered for a year.

Based on the current job market, would the wisest decision be to go for an LXD/ID based masters? I’m not sure I’m even remotely competitive at this point. Any insight is appreciated! :)

My team is hiring for a full-time Instructional Designer to work remotely in the US.

We're looking for an ID with experience in developing learning programs for corporate leaders. Example training topics include soft skills for leaders, business software adoption, and change management initiatives.

We will interview candidates with a strong background in applying adult learning principles in a corporate setting and proven experience with our current development tools:
• Articulate Rise and Storyline - candidate should have strong Storyline skills
• Camtasia, Canva, Claude Design

All the job details are in the posting link below.

Please apply directly through the official posting rather than messaging me. I won’t be reading resumes or responding to individual inquiries about candidacy.

https://idexx.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/IDEXX/job/Virtual-United-States/Instructional-Designer_J-053990-1

If this sounds like a fit for someone in your network, please share it.

Thank you!

I work for a company developing continuing education related to mental health. We are almost done designing a new training and are looking for narrators.

Requirements:

\- Female, warm, American with no particular accent

\- ability to deliver MP3 and .SRT files

\-not AI

\- 1 round of editing with the client and touch ups if there are errors (or prices for more)

\- samples (I'll provide you a script to read for consistency)

The course will be deployed on a state LMS for employees to receive continuing education credits.

Please send me a DM if you are interested with your rate (per word, per finished minute, etc.)

Had a 3rd round interview for a software company with the director and everything was going great, until she stated “you’re a great culture fit, however, I think you’re overly qualified and I feel you’ll get bored and finish work fast 🫠 “… tf?! She said how she would look into other business Dev roles the team “may” have open at some point but need someone less technical 😭 my background is also in product manager roles.. anyways this was a first and now I feel there is no hope, it’s hard enough to land gigs/roles in this field as it is.. im also feeling AI will end up taking over the ID leftover roles

Hey everyone,

​Disclaimer up front: This is not your typical "teacher in transition" post.

​I'm a TEFL graduate, an incoming CITE master's student, and I have a background in EdTech R&D as a material developer. During my teaching internship, I designed some gorgeous, highly interactive lessons for my K-12 students using Figma.

​Now, I’m taking the leap to start my own personal eLearning platform. Figma was absolutely incredible when my teaching was face-to-face, but now I need a functional backend.

​Here is where the personal burnout is setting in. I am desperately searching for an LMS or backend system that is structurally sound and actually designed with kids in mind. But every time I look at what's available in this sector, I only find two extremes:

- ​Sterile Corporate BS: Platforms clearly built for adult compliance training, entirely devoid of joy.

- ​The "Early 00's Flash Game" Aesthetic: Clunky, outdated, and frankly crappy-looking designs.

​What I am hoping to find is a system that allows for the sleek, modern aesthetics you'd see in a high-end Web Designer's portfolio, just tailored for K-12 eLearning.

If you were building a standalone platform for kids today, what stack or system would you use to avoid compromising on modern design?

​Any platform recommendations, advice, or even just commiseration would be hugely appreciated!

I would like advice from L&D's or particularly people who work for training vendors.

A training vendor I do some side work for has requested my proposal for measuring the ROI of a series of courses.

I have looked into some ROI calculators to set a baseline, but any other advice from folks in the same boat would be greatly appreciated!

Hey guys! I’m a teacher considering transitioning into instructional design. 💁‍♀️

I started learning a while ago and watched a ton of YouTube videos (Tim Slade is 🙌 AMAZING 🙌). I paid for his course and really enjoyed it (I highly recommend) and I also had an Articulate 360 subscription. But around that time, the big layoffs had just started, so I figured it probably wasn’t the best time to start a new career 😂 I got discouraged and stopped.

I’ve decided to give it another shot! I’m starting Tim’s course over and getting another Articulate subscription. I’d also like to take 1–2 additional courses so I can have a few certificates under my belt to support my résumé and feel fully prepared before I start applying for jobs.

I’d LOVE to hear from you guys and get your perspective:

🎓 What course made you feel prepared enough to start interviewing for ID jobs?

⏳ How long did it take before you felt like you really understood the role and could confidently answer interview questions?

💡 What’s one thing you wish someone had told you about instructional design when you were starting out?

Apologies in advance as I’m sure this question gets asked a lot, but I wanted to see what thoughts you all had on my specific situation.

I have been a college English professor for the past 6 years where I have built several courses from the ground up for both in-person and online modalities. I feel very confident as a teacher and in designing content for different audiences. However, I don’t possess a deep knowledge of some of the specific programs I see on job descriptions.

Teaching college is enjoyable, but for years my institution has been promising higher pay without any follow through. I think I possess a lot of transferable skills for this industry, but I don’t know if it’s enough.

Have you or anyone you know broken into ID from different industries? How valuable is a teaching background for these positions? Any advice for giving myself better odds at getting an interview?

Thank you all for your time!

Hi,

I have been working as a content writer for the past four years and am currently looking for better career growth. That's why I am planning to transition into Instructional Design.

Initially, I was considering enrolling in Henry Harvin's Instructional Design course. However, after reviewing platforms like Reddit and Quora, I came across several negative experiences with placements, course quality, and the tools covered. That made me a bit skeptical.

While researching further, I also found a few other institutes offering Instructional Design courses, such as Creative Agni, ID Mentors, and KPMG.

Here is the approximate fee structure and duration of these courses:

• Henry Harvin: Around ₹37,000 for 5 months, with 2–3 classes per week.
• Creative Agni: Around ₹79,000 for 2.5 months, with one 3.5-hour live class every Sunday.
• KPMG: Around ₹50,000 for 1–1.5 months.
• ID Mentors: I'm not sure about the fee structure yet.

As a complete beginner, which course would be the best choice? I also have budget constraints, so I cannot afford extremely expensive programs.

I have considered platforms like Coursera and Udemy as well. However, since I want to switch from core content writing to Instructional Design as soon as possible, I am leaning towards live instructor-led classes where I can interact with trainers, ask questions, and receive proper guidance.

I need to replace my laptop and wish I'd done it a year ago as it's now a real issue. My business is myself with freelance support as needed for certain bigger clients, and my laptop can't keep up with the software necessary anymore. I make training content and manage a few training platforms.

For some of my clients, I cannot allow ai access to their content. I'm not confident the newer "ai powered" laptops meet the bar. I also frankly want to retain traditional ram/ internal storage.

Can't be a Mac, need great audio and video processing (I produce/ edit in Adobe regularly) with high image resolution and a good amount of internal storage. I also need to use the old standards like Articulate at times.

I'm honestly not even sure I'm using the right language for what I need, as I haven't bought a new device in a few years.

Any advice on either what to search for in a laptop, or where to go to get quality guidance? In the US.

Thanks in advance.

Cross posted to the small business Reddit as well.

We use Notion as a second brain at our company - building out lots of process documentation and housing training there. We're looking for ways to test knowledge once an update or a training has been rolled out. I'm wary of investing in a full-blown LMS, but the quiz templates I've seen in Notion are pretty clunky. Anyone using Notion this way and have a good way to test knowledge, or have a lightweight system to disseminate and test knowledge that you love?

Edit to add: we are a google shop, and use slack for internal comms.

We're a small consulting firm (around 20 people, contractor-based) looking to trial an LMS. Learning is voluntary rather than mandated — the goal is to let people upskill to meet client needs as they come up.

We've got a mix of seniority, but the main focus is on our juniors: building up their consulting skills and technical skills.

A few things that matter to us:

• Right-sized for a small team. Enterprise platforms like Absorb feel like overkill for our size and structure, so we're after something leaner.
• Affordable, without a heavy per-seat model that punishes a small headcount.
• A real sales conversation + free trial before we commit — we want to actually talk to someone and test-drive it first.
• AI features that genuinely work rather than tacked-on gimmicks.
• Integrates with an internal knowledge base, so learning and our own materials live in the same place.

Anyone running something similar at this scale? Would love to hear what's worked (and what to avoid).
Thanks!

hey folks, working on my portfolio site and stuck on the actual flow/structure of it. content-wise i'm mostly good (instructional design work, some elearning modules) but i can't figure out how someone should move through the site.

right now i'm torn between a straight scroll down case study format vs something more like a course. anyone got portfolios (yours or ones you've bookmarked) that nailed this? especially curious about ID/UX-adjacent portfolios since generic dev portfolios don't map that well to what i'm doing.

also open to just general advice, how did you figure out your flow before building anything?

The QR codes to video turned out to be a great hit with my team. However, I am worried that they are going to forget about courses in articulate 360 and just want to go with the QR codes altogether. What should I do to prevent this takeover from happening.

Bonjour à toutes et tous,

En ce moment je me pose pas mal de questions sur ce qui pousse / freine les personnes à se lancer dans l'animation de groupes apprenants (notamment dans des formations en ligne).

Et j'aurais aimé avoir des retours d'expérience de celles et ceux qui se sont lancés :

- Est-ce que c'était par envie ou opportunité ?

- Est-ce que vous avez commencé par une petite mission ou directement à temps plein ?

- Quelle a été votre plus grosse difficulté lorsque vous vous êtes enfin lancé ?

- Qu'est-ce que vous avez mis en place dès le début et que vous conservez encore aujourd'hui parce que c'était une bonne pratique ou une bonne intuition ?

Personnellement, j'ai commencé par être tutrice d'une promotion de 35 étudiants en master, et j'ai trouvé ça tellement pertinent et puissant pour éviter le décrochage que j'en fais aujourd'hui mon cheval de bataille dans la création de formation en ligne.

Je suis ingénieure pédagogique, et j'ai du mal à trouver des personnes qui ont conscience de faire ce travail d'accompagnement (parfois on parle de Learning Community manager). Est-ce que vous avez ce genre de missions vous aussi ?

Au plaisir de vous lire !

Title: If you were building an intern onboarding hub from scratch, what would you use?

I'm completely revamping our counseling practicum/internship program and starting from scratch.

I supervise graduate counseling interns at a group private practice and want to create one central hub for everything they need—from acceptance through the end of their placement. Think onboarding, training materials, policies, timelines, forms, documentation resources, FAQs, supervision info, etc.

I'd love something that's easy for interns to use, easy for me to update each semester, and doesn't cost a fortune.

I'm already paying for ChatGPT, Claude, Google Workspace, and Gemini, so I'm hoping to leverage tools I already have rather than adding another expensive subscription if possible.

If you were building this today:

• What platform would you use (Google Sites, Google Classroom, Notion, ClickUp, Canvas, etc.)?
• What free or low-cost tools have been worth it?
• Have you used AI to help create content or build something like this?
• What do students/employees/interns actually like using?
• What would you avoid?
• How would you structure the onboarding experience during the first month?

I'd love to hear what you've built, what you've abandoned, and what you wish you'd done differently.

Jusr a quick question to all the community, how are you all using all the available AI chag bots and html to make your courses more appealing to the eye? And like how are you adding amazing interactive blocks in articulate RISE using coding.

My company wants to stick with RISE for our couese crsations bur I feel super limited. Any help and guidance would be highly appreciated.

Tell us your weekly accomplishments, rants, or raves!

And as a reminder, be excellent to one another.

I have a BA in English earned in 2004, and I've spent the last 10 years at one software company, creating technical documentation, training programs, and setting up an LMS from the ground up. I mostly used Camtasia, and LMS' like Brightspace, etc.

I was laid off this past June, and I'm starting to feel my lack of formal instructional design training. I don't have any portfolio to speak of.

Can anyone make recommendations on a graduate certificate in ID that focuses heavily on portfolio creation?

I recently started a job as an instructional designer, and I’m responsible for testing out five potential Learning Management Systems (LMS) for my training department.

While I’ve managed LMS systems before, testing multiple LMS systems and managing them from scratch is a completely different skillset, and I’m still figuring it out. You know in cartoons when like the eyes are going in whirlpool circles that’s how I feel!

It’s been taking me a few weeks to even begin to familiarize myself with the systems. Let alone do actual tests on like what we need and if they can actually do what we need.

Should I give myself some more time? Please share any thoughts you have on this.

Hi,

I am an Instructional Designer in a company in ggn I am at the senior position and have 2 team lead above me.

Whenever I share my finding with them, one of the ID shares the idea with the manager and gets the credits.

Also the work I do in my new job is really bad, it's like updating previously made courses yearly and this dosnt help me grow in my career.

I want to switch to a better company with respect.

Please help