As a learning designer, I am a curious human who is interested in how people learn, what organizations need, and how I can help.
More About Me
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Like many designers, I know learning should be tailored to the problem, targeted to the audience and streamlined to respect learner attention and organizational goals, but I also see an organization's L&D as an important tool to develop operational culture and retain talent. As a marketing professional, I worked with stakeholders and understood external branding and I love to apply that to internal communications. As a teacher, I sat through boring PD so I sought out opportunities to improve training in my district. I can do the same in your company. Adult learners deserve learning experiences that respect their autonomy and time. As such, I build eLearning, blended, and traditional solutions that are as authentic and streamlined as possible, with a focus on participant engagement, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), accessibility, and inclusive design. User Experience (UX) and learner engagement are very important to me!
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My background is in education and leadership, with an M.S. in Educational Leadership. I'm currently a Learning Experience Designer working full time in a major healthcare company and also a freelance eLearning designer. I also volunteer as the Vice President of Teaching: a Pathway to L&D, a nonprofit group that supports teachers learning how to transition to instructional design and other L&D careers.
I have also been:
*a K12 educator for 10 years, first abroad in South Korea and then in a large American school district, where I was a classroom teacher but also a grade level team lead, a district curriculum leader, a committee chairperson running school training and operations projects such as LMS training, an IB program manager, a professional development and technical training workshop deliverer, and a trained clinical educator/instructional coach who mentored new teachers
*a corporate HR and operations manager who trained event staff and security staff
*a marketing coordinator who worked with graphic designers on advertising materials, wrote marketing copy for restaurant advertising, developed SEO strategy, and developed marketing project plans for franchisees in a restaurant company
*an advertising account executive who placed advertisements, sold advertising space, and helped design small business advertising and coordinate advertising with larger businesses
My passions sparked by these broad experiences include human performance, data analytics, instructional design, DEI, change management, and servant leadership.
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I currently maintain my own subscriptions to:
*Camtasia/Snagit (Techsmith)
*Storyline/Rise (Articulate)
*Loom
*Canva
*Microsoft Office Suite
*Google Workspace/Suite
I have worked in but would need access to:
*7 Taps
*Adobe Creative Suite
*Adobe Captivate
*7 Taps
*Adobe Creative Suite
*iSpring Suite
*Vyond
I am also familiar with:
*Figma
*Twine
*HTML5 (HTML/CSS) and basic web design
*H5P (free version through MIT license)
*Genially (free version)
*Many LMS platforms, including Blackboard, Canvas, Cornerstone, Moodle, D2L, Absorb, Workday Learning, Oracle Learning, and proprietary ones.
I love how learning can transform performance and how technology can transform learning. Whether you need concise, focused eLearning experiences or well-documented ILT guides to support trainers in delivering interactive workshops, I can work with a range of modalities. At the core of my design is learner empathy, well developed by working across a wide variety of settings and projects, focused on making inclusive, accessible, culturally responsive learning solutions. My major focus is on developing learning that supports organizational culture and helps build community. Good learning programs are blended and bring together people within the organization to create shared experiences.
Appearances & Workshops
Check out some of my community appearances and workshops below:
My colleague, Ricky Fisher, and I presented at iDTX 2023 in March, talking about networking, volunteering, learning, professional communities, and other ways to get the best out of your L&D or ID community.
I helped planned the 2023 Women of L&D conference at TLDC and joined a panel of several other women from the planning committee on a panel about the role of mentorship in career empowerment.
Check out my podcast appearance with Russel Sweep on his podcast, “The Hot Seat”. Click the image above to locate it at Buzzsprout, which I like because they give a transcript for accessibility. You can check out Russel’s website and show notes here: https://www.russellsweep.com/hotseat. We sat down to talk about skill-building for instructional design and community building.
Luis Malbas and I sat down after the January TLDC event for transitioning teachers to talk more about my background in Marketing, HR/Operations, and Education and how that translated to my current Learning Experience Designer role. We also talked about D&D and how IDs are basically “professional problem solvers”.
Luis Malbas, from The Training, Learning, and Development Community, interviewed me in August 2022 to discuss my transition from teaching and the upcoming T2LD event he had planned for teachers.
A presentation given at TLDC (The Training, Learning, and Development Community) in January 2023 to discuss how teachers can read job advertisements to better support their resume and portfolios.