This past summer I became a mentor to other instructional designers in Educause’s ID2ID Mentoring program. This experience has shown me amazing ways to connect with others in the teaching and learning community. Even as a remote employee, I have found myself connecting with others even more so than when I was in the office. I’m so appreciative of the people I have met over the past few months within ID2ID and in the mentee program.

I am actually extremely proud of the progress I made in reaching my goal of becoming a thought leader in the online learning community and creating a safe space for novice instructional designers around the world. 

With the support of my peers, I actually planned and conducted the first #ID2IDchat Twitter chat (not associated with the program). I was a little nervous about engagement, but we actually had about 10 people participating in the first chat (with the next ones planned for every third Friday). The grand takeaway from the first Twitter chat was that a community is needed for instructional designers to share best practices, collaborate, and problem solve challenges of the profession.

I have successfully interviewed 6 professionals in the online learning community. I still need to edit these episodes, but I am very excited to share these insights and the amazing conversations occurring between myself and other professionals. I truly believe this will benefit the ID community. The first conversation will release tomorrow (August 2) on my Podcast, Be an Instructional Design Rockstar.