How to build your instructional design portfolio with Canva

What are the skills instructional designers #ID need most? I've written about this before, and it seems like a simple question, but it is NOT simple to answer. I discovered the work of a fellow creative and ID, Jean Marrapodi, PhD, CPTD, recently when she delivered an incredible webinar hosted and presented by the Articulate team (if you're an ID and you're looking for community, search for the E-Learning Heroes site and join up). When you look up Jean, you'll find a treasure trove of ID resources on her website. She even shares insights from her missionary work (praise God!). Jean created a document listing skills instructional designers need to be effective in their work. She breaks the skills into categories and levels of expertise. For new instructional designers, if you've never seen a list like this before, search it up. It will be worth your time. No list of ID skills is exhaustive, and Jean shares the same sentiment when she posted about it. Things that can drive or determine what skills you truly need to shine in as an ID include: 👉🏾 the context of your role within your org 👉🏾 the scope of your responsibilities 👉🏾 the industry your company's in 👉🏾 the department you work for 👉🏾 the tools available to you 👉🏾 ...on and on... Here's an example. 20+ years ago, when I helped create agent training (auto insurance agents selling my company's insurance offerings, using a 3rd party software vendor) it was literally cheat sheets with how-tos. And, we went into agents' offices to conduct hands-on demos. My tools were apps in the MS Office Suite. Now, like you, I must have a broad skillset across multiple software and bring forward sound instructional design methodologies regardless of the tool. On a given project in my current role, I may use: ⚡ Camtasia (video creation & editing) ⚡ Storyline (eLearning design) ⚡ Adobe Express + Canva (templates, graphic assets, etc.) ⚡ MS PowerPoint ⚡ Etc. What skills do you value most in your instructional designer? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. ✍🏾 👇🏾

Custom frames aren’t just a design trick, they’re a strategic tool for L&D. By creating your own shapes, you can present course mockups, scenarios, diagrams, and training assets with a cleaner visual impact and stronger brand consistency. In this short video, I walk through how to build a custom frame in Canva and why it matters for instructional designers and eLearning developers. #InstructionalDesign #eLearningDevelopment #LearningAndDevelopment #CanvaTips #TrainingDesign #DigitalLearning #ProductivityTools #articulatestoryline #createdwithcamtasia

Custom frames aren’t just a design trick, they’re a strategic tool for L&D. By creating your own shapes, you can present course mockups, scenarios, diagrams, and training assets with a cleaner visual impact and stronger brand consistency. In this short video, I walk through how to build a custom frame in Canva and why it matters for instructional designers and eLearning developers. #InstructionalDesign #eLearningDevelopment #LearningAndDevelopment #CanvaTips #TrainingDesign #DigitalLearning #ProductivityTools #articulatestoryline #createdwithcamtasia

Let’s play a fun little game called: “How long can I wait for my SME to send me the content?” Day 1: You send the email. Day 3: You send a polite follow-up. Day 7: You start doubting your career choices. Day 14: You’re considering contacting a medium. 🔮 Here’s the thing...your SMEs aren't going to show up one day with a neatly packaged PowerPoint deck, perfectly formatted and instructionally sound. (And if they do, it’s probably from 2011 and has Clip Art.) That’s not how this job works. As instructional designers, our job isn’t to wait for the content fairy to deliver everything on a silver platter...it’s to go get it, extract it...and sometimes create it ourselves. Ask better questions. Build drafts and MVPs to spark discussion. Create content when it doesn’t exist. Keep projects moving, even when things are stuck. Because instructional design is less about waiting…and more about making sense of chaos and turning it into learning that works. 🔗 If you want some additional tips and advice on all of this, check out this post: https://lnkd.in/g-R8iY5E What’s the funniest excuse you’ve ever heard from an SME for not sending the content? Share your experiences, tips, thoughts, and questions down in the comments! Have a great week, ya'll! 👋 —Tim #InstructionalDesign #LearningAndDevelopment #eLearning

As course creators (coaches, entrepreneurs or fellow freelancers), We often use ��course creation” and “instructional design” interchangeably, but they’re not the same. The difference is real and powerful: Course Creation usually means assembling content (videos, slides, PDFs) and publishing it. Content-first, often driven by the creator’s expertise and schedule. While, Instructional Design starts with the learner. It defines clear learning outcomes first and then builds the course around those goals – an outcome-first approach. Instructional design uses proven strategies (clear learning objectives, interactive activities, quizzes and real-world examples) so every element moves learners toward success. Without this structure, courses can feel like disjointed info dumps that learners struggle to apply. Course creation might teach an idea; instructional design ensures learners truly master it. It plans practice, feedback loops, and assessments to turn knowledge into real change. Investing in instructional design upfront means fewer rewrites and more impact later. Engaged, successful learners mean better results, and happier clients or students (leading to referrals!). What this means? Instructional design principles are needed to provide structured, engaging, and transformative courses to your learners. 💡 How do you balance content creation with instructional design? Share your thoughts below, let’s learn from each other!

The final and perhaps most powerful piece of the puzzle -  Engaging Students with Canva! This brand new certified course dives into practical, classroom-ready ways to use Canva’s tools (including the latest features revealed at The Canva World Tour Keynote) to maximise creativity, problem-solving, student agency and collaboration. Discover how to: ✨ Connect your Canva Code creations directly to a Canva Sheet using education-focused examples to analyse, visualise, and share data with ease. ✨ Empower students with digital learning journals, helping them reflect, record, and take ownership of their learning. ✨ Use AI-generated images to inspire writing, spark ideas, and strengthen literacy skills. ✨ Explore the new video timeline, a creative way for students to showcase learning and revisit topics over time. With thoughtfully designed examples, hands-on activities, videos, and cheat sheets, this course ensures your own learning experience is just as creative and engaging as your students’! #CanvaEducation #StudentEngagement #CreativeLearning #DigitalCreativity

The Tip of the Iceberg in Instructional Design We often hear the phrase “Tip of the iceberg,” meaning what we see is just a small part of something much deeper. As an Instructional Designer, I feel this phrase perfectly fits the way we create storyboards. When I design a storyboard, I put a lot of thought into creating onscreen text that aligns with the narration, keeping it content-based, visually appealing, and well-supported with infographics and interactivities. But the two slides where I pour in the most thought and creativity are the Learning Objectives and Summary slides. Learning objectives slide This usually appears at the beginning of a course. The objectives are written as short, crisp lines, often not even full sentences. Yet, these few words represent the depth of the entire course. Each objective is like the tip of the iceberg, hinting at the larger ocean of knowledge that lies beneath. Summary slide At the end of the storyboard, we highlight key learning points again, just a few lines. But behind those short sentences lies everything the learner has absorbed, understood, and connected throughout the course, the vast part of the iceberg that remains unseen. In both cases, what the learner sees on screen is simple and clear, but what lies beneath is hours of analysis, design thinking, and creative effort. That’s the beauty of Instructional Design: It’s not just what’s visible on the surface, but what’s thoughtfully built underneath. #ID #Instructionaldesign #elearning #Learningobjectives #summary #keylearningpoints #tipoftheiceberg

Shouldn’t creating your online course be straightforward? Not for most people Why? Because most people get stuck because their ideas feel unorganised and hard to structure. The best way forward, if this is you, is to use clear tools (like my Instructional Designer's starter pack 😜) that guide you through each stage. You will then know what your learners need, how the course fits together, and how the content should flow. But what is included in The Instructional Designer’s Starter Pack? 👉 A Design Booklet – capture exactly what learners need. 👉 A High-Level Design Tool – see the big picture with clarity. 👉 A Storyboard Planner – map your content into a flow that works. If you are a coach, consultant, or business owner and you’re ready to stop staring at a blank page and start building your course, head over to my website https://lnkd.in/eppjhDUJ

There’s been a lot of conversation lately about whether portfolios are fair or industry standard in instructional design and learning & development. Rather than debating the philosophy, I think it’s worth talking about something *practical and solution-oriented*: 👉 What makes a portfolio truly valuable, for both candidates and hiring managers? What are some of your best practices and solutions for creating a portfolio? Here are a few best practices I've learned, and I'm curious to hear your perspective as well: 1️⃣ Show your thinking, not just your tools. It’s less about whether you used Rise, Storyline, or Canva, and more about how you approached the problem. Include short explanations: What was the need? Who was the learner? What decisions did you make and why? 2️⃣ Protect confidentiality, but show capability. If your past work is under NDA, create sanitized or simulated examples. Redact company names, change visuals, or build a short demo that mirrors your process. Employers understand this, it’s about evidence of skill, not specific content. Or get creative and create your own solution to a real-world problem. 3️⃣ Tell the story behind the solution. Pair each project with a concise write-up or visual walkthrough. Show how you analyzed needs, collaborated with SMEs, or adapted based on feedback. This builds trust in your process. 4️⃣ Keep it simple and accessible. A clean Google Site or Notion page can be just as effective as a custom website. The goal is clarity and professional presentation, not flashiness. 5️⃣ Update regularly. Your portfolio should evolve as your career does. Even one strong, recent project can demonstrate current capability. A portfolio isn’t just about “proving” you can build, it’s about reflecting how you think as a learning designer. *Curious, what’s one thing you wish more portfolios did well? What are your solutions and best practices when it comes to creating your portfolio?* I’d love to hear from other professionals who review or maintain portfolios in L&D.

✨ Sometimes, when you find a new tool you might feel overwhelmed by its content and not know how to navigate it- that's why tutorials are helpful. Lilian Undisa, following your comment on my post about "Useful Work Tools," I recommend checking out the courses on Canva if you are interested in learning how to use this tool. I took the Canva Essentials course. It's easy to follow and perfect for beginners, plus you get to practice after every lesson. It covers everything you need to start creating. In the course library you'll find a variety of courses, activities and lessons. Most courses offer sharable certificates. For anyone else who might be interested in understanding how to best use Canva, Design School is the place to visit. 😉 Canva Essentials: https://lnkd.in/dc_qSga5 #tools #learning #development