Blair Brown
🇺🇸 Alabama, United States
STUDENT STORIES
Blair Brown
Learn how Blair transitioned out of teaching and into instructional design by following her passions.
MEET BLAIRAfter spending nearly two decades working as a teacher, Blair started thinking it was time for a career change. And with more and more being piled onto her as a teacher, Blair started becoming disillusioned with what initially attracted her to teaching in the first place.
Sparked by her work designing her school’s yearbooks, as well as her own classroom materials, Blair learned an important thing about herself: she was more interested in developing instructional materials than teaching them.
“I finally sat down one day and started listing all of the pros and cons of teaching. And what I discovered was that I had a stronger passion and talent for the creative aspects of my job—I wanted to be able to spend more of my days working to design learning materials.”
This led Blair to start searching for jobs that included the things she loved, which led to her discovering the field of eLearning and instructional design. Although she had never heard of instructional design before, Blair was impressed by how it incorporated many things from the “pro” side of her pro and con list.
“I really didn’t know what instructional design was when I discovered it, so I knew I needed to take my time to research it before deciding to leap. I started by watching videos on YouTube, which is how I discovered Tim and his program.”
Blair didn’t enroll in The eLearning Designer’s Academy right away. She knew that if she was going to invest in herself and her career, she wanted to make the best decision. And she wanted to enroll in a program that would offer her the support she knew she’d need to successfully upskill herself and make a big career transition.
“I shopped around a lot before I finally decided to enroll in Tim’s program. The thing that made his program different from all the others is that it provided the most value—it was like the trifecta of what I was looking for. I wanted to learn how to apply instructional design theory, I wanted to learn how to use the tools of the trade, like Articulate Storyline, and I wanted personalized support and guidance. I got all three of those things with Tim’s program.”
During Blair’s time inside The eLearning Designer’s Academy, she focused her efforts on applying her already-strong design skills to developing her sample eLearning project. Building on her previous experience designing her school’s yearbooks, Blair used Articulate Storyline to create a scenario-based course on Yearbook Ad Sales.
As Blair worked to build her eLearning and instructional design skills, she also used what she learned in Tim’s program to help her create and refine her portfolio before she started applying for jobs. She also used her one-on-one time with Tim to prepare for her first interviews.
“What I gained most from The eLearning Designer’s Academy is the personalized feedback and guidance from Tim. Whenever I had a question, I knew I would get an answer directly from him, and I was also left feeling like, ‘Yes, I can do this!’ I was also able to use my one-on-one time with Tim to practice and prepare for my interview, which helped me feel so much more confident.”
All of Blair’s hard work has paid off. Shortly after completing The eLearning Designer’s Academy, Blair started applying and interviewing for various instructional design jobs. But she wasn’t just interested in landing any job. After years of teaching, it was hard for Blair to leave the classroom, and so she wanted to find a job and organization that focused on helping the lives of young people.
This passion for helping kids ultimately helped her to land her first instructional design job with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Blair’s story is one that demonstrates how determination, a willingness to grow in a different direction, and following your passions can make big and positive changes in your life.
See How Tim Can Help You on Your eLearning Journey Today
- Learn how to become an eLearning designer by checking out this post from our blog.
- Start building and showcasing your skills by getting up and running with Articulate Storyline and building your eLearning portfolio with these collections of videos from our YouTube channel.
- Join us inside The eLearning Designer’s Community to connect with Tim and get feedback on your Articulate Storyline courses, your eLearning portfolio, resume, or anything else!
”The eLearning Designer’s Academy was the single most valuable thing I did on my journey to becoming an instructional designer. The self-paced structure of the course worked great with my busy schedule, and each lesson was clear and easy to follow. The real game-changer for me was having an online community to learn with and to learn from, as well as getting personalized support and feedback from Tim himself. This helped build my skills and confidence, which helped me land a job much faster than I had anticipated. I highly recommend Tim’s program to anyone looking to build eLearning and instructional design skills!
Blair BrownLearning Designer
