Author: Chantelle van den Heever
Change… isn’t it just the most 4-letter sounding 6-letter word? And it’s becoming an intricate part of our professional lives as the half-life of skills is rapidly shrinking. The demand for dynamic learning solutions has never been more pressing. At VSLS, we’ve turned this challenge into our charter, crafting learning experiences that don’t just inform but transform.
In the Learning and Development (L&D) space, the convergence of instructional designers, media designers, and learning developers is commonplace. However, actual value creation lies in transcending routine collaboration to become partners in innovation.
This narrative offers a glimpse into the lessons we’ve integrated into our strategies for developing exceptional learning experiences. It begins with uniting diverse expertise to transform individual capabilities into a collective triumph.
Instructional Designers: The Strategists
Instructional designers are the architects of the learning journey. Their expertise in creating the blueprint for learning ensures that every piece of content aligns flawlessly with the overarching learning objectives. Instructional designers at the top of their game deeply understand the learner’s journey and chart a course that leads to effective and meaningful education.
Media Designers: The Visual Storytellers
Media designers are the creative pulse of learning. They are pivotal in translating instructional blueprints into engaging narratives that breathe life into the content. By mastering graphics, animations, and interactive elements, media designers transform conventional content into immersive experiences, capturing the learner’s attention and making the educational journey visually compelling and intuitively navigable.
Learning Developers: The Builders
As learning developers, a deep understanding of authoring tools like Articulate Storyline enables the actualisation of the strategies and designs conceived by other role players in this journey. The developers ensure the end product is engaging, technically sound, accessible, and functional across various platforms.
While individual quality is the foundation of any learning initiative, the collaborative synergy among instructional designers, media designers, and learning developers unlocks multipliers of success.
When working in unison, inputs and improvements from all of the experts result in a learning experience that is rich, engaging, and highly effective:
The learning initiative will be a non-starter if any part of this equation is missing. If any parts lack quality, the learning will be ineffective and inconsequential in driving change and adoption.
Any partnership, no matter how robust and dynamic, is not immune to challenges. However, these challenges are gateways to growth and innovation:
Within the Learning Solutions team at VSLS, our successes depend on a shared commitment to excellence and a collective vision to create genuinely transformative learning experiences.
As part of our commitment to creating relevance for everyone, we welcome partners from various fields and seize opportunities to collaborate, innovate, and lead in learning to shape the future of workforces. If you’re an Instructional Designer, Media designer in the eLearning space or an eLearning developer, I’d love to hear about your experiences and lessons! Please reach out at chantelle@vsls.com