As a freelancer, I work on a range of projects in a variety of training areas and fields. It is crucial for me to be familiar with the ever-evolving ID competencies and job skills, which can change so quickly due to the ill-structured nature of the instructional design field. My commitment to learning more about my field of instructional design is what led me to the Purdue LDT program. In addition to pursuing an advanced degree, I have sought out several avenues of professional development to ensure that I continue to develop as an instructional design professional and a practitioner.

As I identified in my career pathway reflection, one such professional development channel in which I have been active is the Articulate E-Learning Heroes design challenges (https://community.articulate.com/hubs/e-learning-challenges). The weekly low-impact and low-risk ID design challenges make it an ideal forum for practitioners without a great deal of experience to obtain instructional design practice. In addition to promoting problem-solving abilities, visual and interface design, and creativity, these challenges are a practical way for me to produce artifacts for my professional portfolio. To demonstrate my proficiency with Articulate software products, I maintain a digital portfolio in the Articulate community.

In my career pathway reflection, I also identified one of my ID deficiencies that I am trying to overcome: lack of visual design expertise. To mitigate this deficiency, I have been taking visual design courses online through the Interaction Design Foundation (www.interaction-design.org). In addition to the quality and depth of its courses, the site provides access to a community of users, most of whom are in the user-interface/user-experience design field. Being able to optimize user experience is so important in e-learning, particularly with the increasing presence of mobile learning, so being able to access examples of other designers’ works has already provided me with much visual design inspiration.

Even though I have reached the end of this program, my personal and professional development is an ongoing process; I expect to build on the competencies I have developed over the past year and a half. I will also continue to develop an even clearer vision of my future in the learning design and technology field as I fully devote myself to this field.