Should I be an e-learning specialist?

Online learning has become an ever greater force since the arrival of COVID-19, making e-learning specialists more important than ever.

If the idea of creating online courses and supporting learners appeals to you, why not pursue a career as an e-learning specialist?

An e-learning specialist is responsible for:

• Design and development — creating learning content for courses that students or employees take online

• Technological solutions — selecting, implementing, and maintaining any technology associated with e-learning programs

• Support and training — ensuring participants can make the most out of a course

What fields, industries, and workplaces do e-learning specialists work in?

Typically, they find themselves working in:

• companies that provide e-learning services

• company departments that provide corporate training

• educational institutions like colleges, universities, and school boards

• the government sector

What tools do e-learning specialists use?

They work with popular e-learning authoring tools such as Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, Lectora, iSpring Suite, H5P, and Easygenerator.

They use these tools to create courses and learning materials. They often integrate these courses into learning management systems (LMS) or cloud-based platforms that these companies and institutions use for internal learning.

Typically, as an e-learning specialist, you'd have a varied day with different tasks depending on the ability and age of your learners.

These might include:

• preparation of course materials

• moving materials into an LMS

• creating assignments for participants

• engaging participants in taking part in discussions

• checking assignments and replying to participants' questions

• preparing final certificates for the course

When designing e-learning courses, providing suitable content, making quizzes, and building assessment tests are just one part of all that you do.

A career as an e-learning specialist might be for if you are:

• good at communicating with your learners

• working in an organized and structured way

• able to break down content to make it accessible for a wide range of learners

• willing to receive and reflect on feedback about your courses

• good at learning and using new education technologies

• a life-long learner yourself

• able to transform classroom teaching out of the box into digital learning spaces such as different learning management systems of platforms like the Metaverse

• don't have any interest in building relationships with your learners

• don't like working under pressure

• can't create learning contents for a digital environment

• can't commit to keep up-to-date with the newest teaching technologies

• don't embrace lifelong learning

But don't worry! Some people transition to e-learning specialists after switching from a prior career, for example, teaching or creating digital content for websites.

If you're not ready to commit to creating e-learning content but still want to get involved in teaching or working with learners, visit a local school or adult learning courses to see if they need mentors or volunteers.

You could also do volunteering in instructional design organizations to see if creating e-learning courses is for you.

With e-learning specialists being high in demand, salaries are in general quite high already but are expected to rise in the next few years.

According to Salary.com, the average income for e-learning specialists in the USA is $89,306.

In Canada, e-learning specialists are expected to be paid $72,611 CAD on average, according to ERI Economic Research Institute.

As the typical e-learning specialist might have to work as a freelancer before landing a permanent role in a company, there are some things to consider before making the final jump:

1. Does your day job allow a side hustle in e-learning design?

2. Could you survive financially from only designing online courses?

3. What effect would having to work two jobs have on your social life/family?

4. Where would you be based and how would that affect your financial situation?

Especially post-pandemic, online teaching is the new norm and with many companies moving their staff training into this area. Expect more demand for highly qualified e-learning specialists.

To start you off with e-learning: