About

I remember when I started my career in Instructional Design. Like many others in the position, I fell into the job. My company gave me the technology, the tools, and said "go to it!" Other than a brief training on how to use software, that was the extent of my training.

Fast-forward 20 years, and I've learned quite a bit about Instructional Design. Along the way there were times where I needed a little help, or perhaps a point in the right direction. That's why I created this blog. Hopefully, I can give you the help I couldn't easily find.

My name is Bill Miller. I'm a corporate Instructional Designer who has been working in the Peoria, Illinois area for two decades.

Growing up in St. Louis, I attended the Webster Groves Elementry Computer School in the early 80's. It was created as a magnet school to teach children about a "new" technology, personal computers. Since this was in the days of the Home Computer, we were taught how to program/code. In these "bitty box" days programming was an essential tool. Disk drives were very expensive and software was scarce. If you wanted the computer to do something for you, you had to program it to do what you wanted. (There wasn't an app for that.)

In the early 2000's I was working as an instructor for one of the local communications companies. eLearning was becoming a "new trend" and my company realized that I had a developer skillset. The company created a centralized Instructional Design department and asked if I would be a part of it. I've been working as an Instructional Designer ever since.

While much of the content I create is eLearning, eLearning is actually just one part of what an Instructional Designer does. We also make tradtional learning materials, instructor-guides, in-class simulations, learning games, and more. Realizing there's more to the job than originally thought, a new term, "learning experience designer," is coming into common use which better reflects all of the different hats a learning designer wears.

I believe in simplicity. As such, I renounce the current trends in web design. Not every webiste has to be a single-page web app. You also don't need all that JavaScript. (No, really, you don't.)

I use Vanilla standard HTML, CSS, and JavaScript where applicable. I have nothing against frameworks, but believe there is a time and place. In most cases nowadays, it isn't the correct time or place.

If the site seems simple, it's because it was meant to be. You're here for the content, not the coding, frameworks, and extra crap.

Notice there is nowhere that one needs to register and you didn't have to log in.? My use of cookies and local storage on your machine is limited to storage of your information should you utilize one of my apps. I don't store your information on my servers. I use your computer to store your information. If you dump your browser cache any information you had set in one of my apps will be gone. I had no idea your information was there or what it was. I also can't undelete or retrive it. Sorry.

My understanding of the legal need to tell you this information in some juristictions not withstanding, these types of notifications are pointless. ALL WEBSITES USE COOKIES. Even if they don't, just assume that they do. You're being tracked one way or another by someone. It's been this way for a while, so there's not really a need to tell you about cookies.