​One of my graduate educational technology students just emailed to ask me this question. I’m glad they did, because it shows that they are thinking about what digital tools they are going to use, and how they are going to use them as part of their coursework. Normally, I’d send off a quick reply. But, the question of the acceptability of using an AI-generated infographic does not have a simple yes/no answer. 

​The truth is, there are a number of things to consider related to several key ethical issues, three of which are:

For instance, CBU’s CTL (n.d.) promotes a Stoplight (Red Light/Green Light/Amber Light) decision-making matrix, highlighting whether the use of AI tools is off-limits, fair game, or if students should proceed with caution. Ontario Tech University’s Teaching and Learning Center (2026) provides a detailed numerical level framework, ranging from Level 1 (no AI use) to Level 6 (Full AI – AI is integral to the creation of work). In the cases of both CBU and Ontario Tech University, instructors are encouraged to include clear statements on their syllabi as to what constitutes acceptable AI use. Ontario Tech University also now encourages instructors to indicate the AI in Assessment Scale level designated for each individual assignment both in their syllabi and detailed assignment instructions. ​

For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that your instructor has designated your assignment as either “Green Light” or “Level 6 – Full AI.” You are permitted to leverage AI tools to generate materials for your assignment or project. That doesn’t mean you can just proceed without further due diligence to academic integrity! My general rule when using AI tools is that I should be able to stand behind the content. I should have confidence in its veracity, and I should be able to say that I used the AI tools to produce resources representing my work. I would never use AI tools to generate the content for me. 

On strategy that I use to mitigate the biases that may result from trawling the open web for content, using skewed algorithms, is to restrict my resource generation activities to Google’s (2026b) NotebookLM. NotebookLM will only generate notes, slide decks, images, podcasts, or videos, based on content that I have curated. While the LLM backbone of NotebookLM may still have biases within its algorithms, at least I can be confident in the veracity of the source materials that I provide to it. BUT, I must still be careful with my prompting. AND, I must still carefully review anything I have asked it to generate for me. I need to be able to stand behind the messages conveyed by those resources, as much as I need to be able to stand behind the sources of those messages! If I’m not confident that the messaging is accurate, unbiased, and free from the propagation of stereotypes, then I need to go “back to the drawing board.” I either need to manually edit the content, or revise my prompting strategies to get the tools to generate something more acceptable.

Confidence in the academic integrity of resources that you have used AI tools to produce for you is not enough. Using infographics to convey information is pointless of your audience cannot access that information!

If you are using the infographic as part of a live presentation, including too much text creates two significant risks (Hayes, 2025; Presono, 2022; Rivera, n.d.). One risk is that you will end up simply reading that text word-for-word – which makes for a poor and unengaging presentation. If you know the content well enough that you don’t read the on-screen text word-for-word, you create another accessibility and engagement issue – your audience will experience cognitive overload trying to follow both your speaking and the on-screen text! 

If you are using your infographic as media content in an asynchronous presentation (such as embedding it on a group presentation website), then the inaccessibility of text-within-an-image becomes a real problem for you and your audience (Government of Canada, 2025; University of South Carolina, n.d.). You must ensure that the embedded image contains appropriate ALT text that describes the content and purpose of that image (without repeating the text word-for-word). And, because the text content is the primary focus of the image, you need to repeat those key points in actual machine-readable text as part of the web page content. If that sounds kind of redundant and pointless, it is! A good infographic should focus on image-based information, with text minimized to content headings and a few key points. The infographic should reinforce the content you are presenting on your web page. It should NOT replace it! 

Besides the immediate costs of subscriptions for faculty, students, and institutions, there are more global costs that bring into question the sustainability of widespread use of AI applications. Steinberger (2025), Tadorovic (2024), and Wright (2025) all emphasize the disproportionate energy use, water use, and carbon footprint of Generative AI. Wright (2025) notes that using ChatGPT just to draft a 100-word email "sweats off more than an Evian bottle’s worth of water (519 millilitres)... [and] the electricity used to generate that 100-word email is equal to powering 14 LED light bulbs for an hour (0.14 kilowatt-hours (kWh))." According to Goldman Sachs (2024), “a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search,” and the growing demand for AI use may lead to “data center power demand will grow[th of] 160% by 2030.” Such high natural resource demands may be unsustainable, and antithetical to strategic goals of your school or organization. In light of this, when considering how to integrate AI applications, and demonstrate their ethical use, you should carefully consider whether the benefits of using such tools are sustainable and outweigh their potential environmental impacts.

Bandli, S. (2025, August 27). Understanding Colour Theory for Learning Experience Design. [Web log post]. Who's Your ADDIE? https://www.whosyouraddie.com/post/colour-theory-for-learning-experience-design

​Cape Breton University (2020). 6.3 Citing AI. Academic Integrity Handbook. https://pressbooks.atlanticoer-relatlantique.ca/acadintegritycbu/chapter/citing-ai/

Cape Breton University (2026a). Academic Integrity. https://www.cbu.ca/current-students/academic-integrity/

Cape Breton University (2026b). Artificial Intelligence at Cape Breton University. https://www.cbu.ca/about-cbu/artificial-intelligence-at-cape-breton-university/

CBU Library (n.d.). How to use and NOT use AI Tools. https://libguides.cbu.ca/c.php?g=734809&p=5287845

Di Placido, D. (2025, March 27). The AI-Generated Studio Ghibli Trend, Explained. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/03/27/the-ai-generated-studio-ghibli-trend-explained/

Gillham, J. (2024, December 17). OpenAI and ChatGPT Lawsuit List. Originality.ai. https://originality.ai/blog/openai-chatgpt-lawsuit-list

Goldman Sachs (2024, May 14). AI is poised to drive 160% increase in data center power demand. https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/AI-poised-to-drive-160-increase-in-power-demand

Google (2026a, March 17). Ethical Infographics in AI Age. [AI-generated infographic]. NotebookLM [Image generator]. https://notebooklm.google.com/

Google (2026b). NotebookLM [Small Language Model AI application]. https://notebooklm.google.com/

Government of Canada (2025, September 19). Alternative text and long description - Best practices. https://a11y.canada.ca/en/alternative-text-and-long-description-best-practices/

Hayes, M. (2025, January 13). What the Research Says About How Text-Heavy Slides Impact Investor Day Audiences. [Web log post]. LinkedIn Pulse. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-research-says-how-text-heavy-slides-impact-investor-mark-hayes-756ue

Heydari, A. (2024, November 9). Media outlets, including CBC, sue ChatGPT creator. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/openai-canadian-lawsuit-1.7396940

Malamed, C. (n.d). What Learning Professionals Should Know About Color. [Web log post]. The eLearning Coach. https://theelearningcoach.com/media/graphics/graphics-primer-color/

Ontario Tech University (2026). AI in Assessment Scale. https://tlc.ontariotechu.ca/nexthub/artificial-intelligence/ai-scale/

OpenAI (n.d.). ChatGPT. [Software application]. https://chat.openai.com

Power, R. (2024a). A Picture Isn’t Always Worth a Thousand Words… In The ALT Text: Accessible Learning with Technology. Power Learning Solutions. https://pressbooks.pub/thealttext/chapter/a-picture-isnt-always-worth-a-thousand-words/

Power, R. (2024b). Accessible Presentations. In The ALT Text: Accessible Learning with Technology. Power Learning Solutions. https://pressbooks.pub/thealttext/chapter/accessible-presentations/

Power, R. (2024c). Are your PDFs Accessible? In The ALT Text: Accessible Learning with Technology. Power Learning Solutions. https://pressbooks.pub/thealttext/chapter/are-your-pdfs-accessible/

Power, R. (2024d). Evaluating Graduate Education Students’ Self-Efficacy with the Use of Artificial Intelligence Agents. Journal of Educational Informatics, 5(1), 3-19. https://journalofeducationalinformatics.ca/index.php/JEI/article/view/269 

Power, R. (2024e). Should You Use Color for Emphasis? In The ALT Text: Accessible Learning with Technology. Power Learning Solutions. https://pressbooks.pub/thealttext/chapter/should-you-use-color-for-emphasis/

Power, R. (2025). Seamlessly Integrating and Evaluating AI Competencies for Graduate Education Students. In Hambrock, H., & Power, R. (Eds), Artificial Intelligence for Seamless Education. International Research Network for Innovative Sustainable Seamless Education and Power Learning Solutions. ISBN 978-1-7390190-3-7. https://pressbooks.pub/aiforseamlesseducation/chapter/thechattproject/ 

Presono. (2022, May 13). This is the real reason why too much text on slides doesn't work. https://presono.com/en/blog/2022-05-13-11-35-06/

Rivera, E. (n.d.). You. Yes, you. You're using too much text on your presentation slides! [Web log post]. Dr. Echo Rivera. https://www.echorivera.com/blog/toomuchtext

Steinberger, J. (2025). “Sharing the slides I used to try to convince my students NOT to use Gen AI, aka artificial stupidity.” [LinkedIn post]. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/julia-steinberger-69139b1_sharing-the-slides-i-used-to-try-to-convince-activity-7305540616610852865-WRoS?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAALoqOwBDiJDl830ePQ_JLQsTe9bOxP94Bk

Tadorovic, I. (2024, September 4). ChatGPT consumes enough power in one year to charge over three million electric cars. Balkan Green Energy News. https://balkangreenenergynews.com/chatgpt-consumes-enough-power-in-one-year-to-charge-over-three-million-electric-cars/

World Wide Web Consortium (2024, December 12). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/

Wright, I. (2025, February 17). ChatGPT Energy Consumption Visualized. Business Energy UK. https://www.businessenergyuk.com/knowledge-hub/chatgpt-energy-consumption-visualized/

​University of South Carolina (n.d.). Infographic ALT Text. Digital Accessibility. https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/digital-accessibility/toolbox/best_practices/alternative_text/infographic-alt-text

​One of my instructional design students recently raised a good question about the use of color to emphasize text in digital documents (one that warrants a bit of a "mea culpa" on my part!). In the first weeks of the term, I advised students to avoid highlighting text or using colored fonts for emphasis. Then, in a recent response to another student's discussion forum questions, I highlighted her questions to set them apart from my responses. The recent question was along the lines of "you told us never to highlight text because it is a digital accessibility violation, but you just highlighted text in your post... can you clarify?"

So... my "mea culpa." ​My initial advice came across as a "hard and fast" rule -- NEVER use color for emphasis. The truth is, it is a bit more like the "i before e" rule of English spelling than an absolute. There are plenty of exceptions to the "i before e" rule in the English language. And, there are plenty of nuances to the "rules" around using color for emphasis of text in instructional design. In my early course advice, I didn't get into these nuances because we'll be exploring digital accessibility basics for instructional design in more detail later in the course (as students are building ID pilot projects). The original student had highlighted some key points in a discussion post for emphasis, and another student had configured all of their discussion posts to use a purple font. So, I brought up the topic of the use of color for emphasis a bit early, to get my students thinking about how to avoid creating unnecessary barriers for their reading audiences (kind of like how primary school teachers emphasize the "i before e" rule in the early grades, and let students learn the exceptions and nuances of English spelling later on). 

​The truth is, you CAN use colored text or highlighted text for emphasis. BUT, it ONLY works for "sight" readers who have no visual acuity issues. Such techniques will cause issues if:

​So... you CAN use color for emphasis. BUT, you must carefully consider the potential unintended consequences for your audience! The best strategy is to avoid using colored text or highlighted text unless absolutely necessary. That will avoid all of the issues noted above. Another strategy is to include some additional form of emphasis to grab the attention of "audio" readers, such as adding a graphical icon with appropriate ALT text like the following:

In the example above, the "alert" icon creates additional emphasis for "sighted" readers. It also contains the ALT text "This is an important point!," which will be read aloud to "audio" readers who are using screen reader applications.

​Finally, you should always "test" your product before sharing it. You can use a color contrast analyzer tool like the free Colour Contrast Analyzer available from TPGI (2024). When testing color contrast ratios (the perceptive differences between the foreground (text) and background (page or screen) colors), be sure to also test the ratios when displaying the content in grey scale, and when displaying the content on a dark mode screen. Here's how that would look using a sample of the text like what I shared (using yellow highlighted text, and some text with a purple font) via our course discussion forum:

Let's take a look at the results of color contrast tests on each text display version to see where we run into potential accessibility issues.

As you can see, the yellow highlighted text that I used in my discussion forum post is still readable, and passes all levels of WCAG standards for digital accessibility (World Wide Web Consortium, 2023). But, how about when that text is viewed in grey scale or on a "dark mode" screen?

Now, let's take a look at the text formatted with a purple font.

The color contrast test results show that using a purple font can be problematic for your readers in just about any screen display mode.

Sometimes it is necessary to use color to emphasize things when creating digital teaching and learning resources (or any digital text resources). For instance, differentiating between items based on their color may be a functional technical requirement (such as with colored buttons), or one of your required content learning outcomes (such as differently colored safety labels). In those cases, you can use the following strategies:

The key is to ensure that any emphasis you intend to create by using color is not lost for any readers who cannot actually perceive that color, or who will have difficulty viewing the text because of the color choice!

OpenDyslexis (n.d.). OpenDyslexic: A typeface for Dyslexia. https://opendyslexic.org/

Power, R. (2020, February 13). Helping Everyone Access Your Online Teaching Resources. [Web log post]. Power Learning Solutions. https://www.powerlearningsolutions.com/blog/helping-everyone-access-your-online-learning-resources

Power, R. (2023, April 6). A Picture Isn't Always Worth a Thousand Words... [Web log post]. Power Learning Solutions. https://www.powerlearningsolutions.com/blog/a-picture-isnt-always-worth-a-thousand-words

Power, R. (2023). Chapter 17. Accessibility in Online Learning. Everyday Instructional Design: A Practical Resource for Educators and Instructional Designers. Power Learning Solutions. https://pressbooks.pub/everydayid/chapter/accessibility-in-online-learning/

TPGI (2024). Colour Contrast Analyzer (CCA). https://www.tpgi.com/color-contrast-checker/

World Wide Web Consortium (2023). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/

​Sometimes we share videos with our students that are not narrated, and that contain just on-screen text. While viewers can technically read the text embedded in the video, this method does not truly meet Digital Accessibility requirements. That's because the use of embedded text in a video is the same as embedding text within an image in a document. It is not machine-readable, and thus it excludes audience members who may need to use a screen reader application for any reason (they may be visually-impaired, have low language reading ability, have a reading-related learning disability such as Dyslexia, or they may be a non-native language speaker who needs to translate your text for better comprehension). 

The two best ways to help all potential viewers get the most out of your non-narrated video content are to:

• Make sure you have Closed Captions enabled, using the on-screen text for the captions text.
• Provide a transcript file for your video.

​YouTube Creators (2021) has an excellent overview of how to add or edit captions either when you are uploading your video, or after your video has already been published. Remember, for a video with no narration (just text on screen), you will need to transcribe that text into the captions editor (either manually, or copy-paste the "slide" text from your video, and insert it to align with the timings when it appears on screen.

​Another option for creating subtitles or captions for a non-narrated video is to use an external video editing application, like Screencast-O-Matic (2019). This option works well if you have a copy of the video file (MP4 or other format) on your computer, but is less useful if you use a tool like PowToon (2022) to create your video and export it directly to YouTube (because you cannot download the video file unless you have a pro-level subscription).

​While the following webinar demonstration video (Power, 2021, April 9) features the creation of captions for a narrated video using Screencast-O-Matic, the steps for creating, editing, and uploading your captions file to YouTube would be the same for a text-only video.

​In addition to making sure your text-only video has Closed Captions enabled, I also strongly recommend adding a transcript file for your visually-impaired users. A transcript file can be opened or downloaded. Your audience members can then use any screen reader application (such as JAWS (Freedom Scientific, n.d.), NVDA (NV Access, 2023), or Google Read and Write (Texthelp, 2023)) to read the on-screen video text out load to them. The following video shows how I uploaded a transcript file to Google Drive, and then added a link to that transcript to the video description for my instructor welcome video in YouTube. Remember to make sure your transcript file meets basic document accessibility requirements before sharing it! For more on that topic, refer to my blog post Helping Everyone Access Your Online Learning Resources (Power, 2020).

Freedom Scientific. (n.d.). JAWS. [computer software]. https://www.freedomscientific.com/  

NV Access (2023). About NVDA. [computer software]. https://www.nvaccess.org/about-nvda/

Power, R. (2019, November 9). Hi There! Meet Rob Power. [video]. https://youtu.be/ff-6GtdX9xM

Power, R. (2020, February 13). Helping Everyone Access Your Online Learning Resources. [Web log post]. Power Learning Solutions. https://www.powerlearningsolutions.com/blog/helping-everyone-access-your-online-learning-resources

Power, R. (2021, April 9). Creating Your Own Video Captions (Webinar Demonstration). [video]. https://youtu.be/4ghNMjCDOfg

Power, R. (2023, May 1). Adding Transcripts to YouTube Videos. [video]. https://youtu.be/q5z_ZHCVFjg

PowToon (2022). https://www.powtoon.com/

Screencast-O-Matic (2019). Video Creation for Everyone. [Web page]. https://screencast-o-matic.com/

Texthelp (2023). Read&Write for Google Chrome. [computer software]. https://www.texthelp.com/products/read-and-write-education/for-google-chrome/
​
YouTube Creators (2021, May 5). How to Add Captions While Uploading & Editing Your Videos. [video]. https://youtu.be/rB9ql0L0cU

​There are lots of cases where the graphics we use contain text. Sometimes it is unavoidable. The questions you should be asking in this case are:

​The following graphic illustrates a common example of graphics that I see in my email inbox where actual text should be used instead of the image:

​There is nothing in this graphic that could not be put in regular text format, and a screen reader cannot "see" the text in the image to read it out to you. Sure, you could repeat the text within the ALT tag for the image, so that a screen reader will read it out... but what's the point? The graphic does not actually clarify or add anything to the message, and you are wasting time creating the graphic and typing the text into the ALT tag when you could simply type it right onto the page! Additionally, text within your image will NOT reflow and resize based on the reader's screen size and orientation, which could also render that text unreadable to your entire audience. You are also preventing anyone who uses an Accessibility plugin from modifying the font, color, or contrast of the text to make it more readable in their specific context. And, besides the message potentially being lost for anyone using a screen reader (if they do engage with the content at all), there is the potential that your intended audience may also view the message as SPAM, and thus ignore it!

​Here is a better example of a graphic that could be used to accompany the same message. In this case, you can see that the image is being used to draw visual readers' attention to some key points. The accompanying ALT text tells a screen reader user why the image is being used. And the main points of the message are included in regular text format in the body of the page.

​If you are going to use a graphic as part of your message or content page, make sure you test that image in "dark mode." Most of the time, we are not working in dark mode when we create graphics. If our graphics have transparent backgrounds, they will display differently for any reader who has adjusted the color scheme of their screen. Parts of the graphic may end up getting "washed out" by a different color screen background, rendering them unreadable. Here is an example of an email message that contains a graphic with a transparent background, as viewed in dark mode on my mobile device. The message was unreadable until I got to my desktop computer!

​The quick fix to this is to remove the transparent background before publishing the graphic, and choose a background color that has a sufficient color contrast ratio with the foreground (text).

I frequently received questions about using tables to organize content on web pages or course content pages in an LMS. I also frequently see novice instructional design students do this in order to make content line up for aesthetic purposes. The problem is, if you are not well-versed in HTML coding, and using tools like Bootstrap UI to create engaging, interactive, responsive page elements, then using simple "tricks" like aligning contents with tables, manually formatting text for emphasis, or manually inserting lines on your pages to create visual divisions between content can actually create more problems then they solve!

Insprired by a recent flurry of questions from my ID students, I put together this video to demonstrate what problems you create when you use tables to organize content (among other issues). The key recommendations to optimize course page layout, minimize cognitive overload, and minimize Digital Accessibility issues are:

Power, R. (2023, February 20). UX and Accessible Course Pages. [video]. https://youtu.be/QEvJ6r1ylDo

The Everyday ID eBook is available as an Open Access / Open Educational Resource via the Pressbooks platform, and can also be downloaded in both ePUB and PDF format, at ​https://pressbooks.pub/everydayid/

​There’s an old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, that isn’t true is you can’t see the picture! Which brings me to the inspiration for this blog post, and for a series of videos that I just put together. I am working with a client that has a number of PDF versions of mock WHMIS information sheets (Canadian Council for Occupational Health and Safety, n.d.) that they want to make available as downloads to accompany a new series of workplace safety online training modules. The problem is, those PDFs are all image-only files. They reminded me of the photocopies and scans of course readings, like the one pictured below, that I used to find on reserve in the university library, or uploaded into online courses that I was a student in. 

​The problem with these image-only readings is that they are not machine-readable. They contain no text that a screen reader application could read aloud to students who have visual impairments. Thus, they are only as good as their ALT text – and you certainly cannot (or at least you should not) recreate all of the text embedded in the images in their ALT tags! If you did, you are probably only going to make things worse from a Digital Accessibility standpoint:

​Luckily, there are ways to determine if a PDF you want to share with your students is machine-readable (and, at least somewhat accessible). In the following video, I demonstrate how to do this using both Adobe Acrobat Reader (2023b) (free!) and Acrobat Pro (2023a) (paid). 

​Okay, but what if you have one of those image-only PDFs and you want to make it accessible for all of your students? To do that, you will need an actual PDF editor like Acrobat Pro, which has a number of built-in features such as optical character recognition (OCR) and a suite of Accessibility Tools (Adobe, 2023c, d). Watch the following video for a demonstration of how I use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to edit an image-only PDF, convert it to one that can be read by a screen reader application, properly tag the text and images, and set the reading order (the order in which a screen reader will read the page contents out load to your students).

Adobe (2023a). Adobe Acrobat Pro. https://www.adobe.com/ca/acrobat/acrobat-pro.html

Adobe (2023b). Adobe Acrobat Reader. https://www.adobe.com/ca/acrobat/pdf-reader.html

Adobe (2023c). Creating accessible PDFs. https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/acrobat/using/creating-accessible-pdfs.html

Adobe (2023d). How to customize your toolbar. https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/acrobat/how-to/customize-toolbar.html

Canadian Council for Occupational Health and Safety (n.d.). WHMIS.org: Canada's Workplace Safety Portal. https://whmis.org/​

Microsoft (2022). Word. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/word

Power, R. (2020, February 12). Two Basic Steps to Make Your Documents Digitally Accessible. [video]. https://youtu.be/AKzuXghQFnc

Power, R. (2020, February 13). Helping Everyone Access Your Online Learning Resources. [Web log post]. Power Learning Solutions. https://www.powerlearningsolutions.com/blog/helping-everyone-access-your-online-learning-resources

Power, R. (2023, February 2, a). Are Your PDFs Accessible? [video]. https://youtu.be/frOYI-y-XfE

Power, R. (2023, February 2, b). Creating Accessible PDFs. [YouTube playlist]. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIJ8QfsveW2Y5rFnTVytRkyVc46N3WXVI

Power, R. (2023, February 3). Fixing PDF Accessibility. [video]. https://youtu.be/33h70ytABkc

Power, R. (2023, February 2, c). Properly Exporting PDFs. [video]. https://youtu.be/F_QAGsHQ-FE

TPGI (2023). Colour Contrast Analyzer (CCA). [Web page]. https://www.tpgi.com/color-contrast-checker/

​I recently received an email from a former student from one of my instructional design courses who is looking to jump into the game as an independent ID contractor. He was looking for some advice on getting up and running -- particularly with what to consider about setting up a website and promoting himself in the field. I figured that I'd share a few considerations that would be helpful to anyone looking to do the same (whether you're considering going into it as a full-time gig, or as a "side hustle."

My former student asked for advice on:

• Information I should know in setting up a website and the legalities surrounding it for someone in an e-learning profession?
• What types of eLearning digital artifacts I could showcase as part of my repertoire?
• Samples of rates or contracts I could potentially offer clients?
• Ideas of what clients would be looking for in terms of skill sets?
• Other advice that you could offer as this is a path I'm sure you have gone down yourself?

​Let's start with "ideas of what clients would be looking for in terms of skill sets." There is no definitive answer to this! My advice (which was shared to me by a former colleague with expertise in entrepreneurship) is to promote what you are good at and interested in doing. Don't expect to be a one-stop shop that can offer anything and everything a potential client may need in terms of instructional design work. If your experise and experience is in the area of creating multimedia resources, then focus on that. If your background includes experience managing course development products, emphasize that. If there is something that you have a bit of "technical" experience with, but you have a solid understanding of what needs to be done and why (i.e., you have a strong understanding of the principles and processes, but have only dabbled with specific applications common in the industry), and you are interested in doing that sort of work for clients, then focus on that, too! You can always master specific tools or applications if you know what you are trying to achieve and why! But, if there is something that you don't have a strong background or experience in (say, curriculum development, or organizational needs assessment processes), then don't emphasize that. If you promote yourself as a one-stop shop for everything, you run the risk of getting yourself in over your head with work requests that you can't handle. Plus, you run the risk of not appearing to be someone with specialist expertise.

​Remember -- your potential clients could recruit an in-house developer (or go to a job board or recruiting agency to contract one) if all they need is someone with the technical skills to build a product in a given system. What they're looking for in an independent contractor is an expert consultant -- someone with a background that they can't easily recruit for a short-term in-house position! So, promote yourself as that expert in your niche of expertise!

​Your website is one of your primary vehicles for promoting your expertise and services. Here are a few tips.

When it comes to what types of digital artifacts you can include... that is completely up to you! If you have blog posts, instructional videos, interactive instructional resources you can share, then share them! I have a fairly extensive list of currated resources from over the years shared on the Power Learning Solutions site. But, another useful strategy might be to use a free LMS platform such as Canvas Free for Teachers to create a sample course site. In that course, you can include sample modules created in different ways, using different tools. For instance, you could include a sample module that follows a standard higher education course format, and one that uses the tools and structures frequently seen for shorter workplace training modules (using tools such as Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, etc). You can either post the self-registration link so that your website visitors can check it out at their leisure, or post an overview of the site on your website, with a note that clients can be provided with free access upon request, following an initial consultation. Think of it as a menu that you clients can choose from when you are consulting with them about the unique instructional design needs. Creating a sample course site allows you to keep expanding your showcase platform, without having to have everything ready for your main website right away!

​If you are looking for more ideas about the types of resources that you can share, check out the Resources section here on the Power Learning Solutions site.

​Now... this is a tricky question! Again, I'm going to fall back on the advice my entrepreur expert colleague shared with me. Do NOT post set rates for products and services. You are not a department store. Your clients are looking for a specialist, and they'll expect to be charged for specialist services. If you post rates on your site, you could end up under-selling yourself (by accepting contracts that take far longer than what your posted rate will actually fairly cover). And, you run the risk of being underbid by a potential competitor who sees your posted rates, and snatches a potential client out from under you in the early consultation stages. 

​What you charge for your services should be determined in consultation with your client, based on your initial consultations about their unique needs and the anticipated time and resources needed to do the job. Consider how much you would expect to be paid, by the hour, for doing the same work for a full-time employer. You don't want to spend the same number of hours on an independent contract for less pay! You'll also want to consider using a sliding scale on your service quotes, that varies depending on either the actual amount of time it takes to do the work, and the amount of deliverables actually produced for the client. I frequently do provide "hard figure quotes" to my clients after an initial consultation -- but that's because I've gained a good sense of how much work will be involved once I have that initial consultation. However, there are some cases where I do use sliding (hours of work) based scales, because the initial consultations reveal that the full scope of the project work may evolve as we progress through the project.

​Another key piece of advice from my entrepreneurial colleague -- do NOT undersell yourself because you are afraid that a potential client may balk at your quote. If you go too low, you run the risk of not only getting underpaid, but also of losing the client because they don't view you as a serious expert in the field!

​Of course -- there are some cases where you may deem it appropriate to offer a potential client a low-ball quote. For instance, you may connect with a non-profit organization or another small business operator who either does not have the budget of a larger organization, or who may be a valuable connection to build upon for future collaborations (and word-of-mouth promotion).

​Your legal considerations may vary, depending on where you are physically located. Please note, I am NOT an expert on either business or tax law! But, here's what I had to keep in mind:

​I recently had a recent discussion forum conversation with some of my instructional design students about whether or not to include the instructor in an instructional video. Personally, I believe that doing so increases Teacher Presence, thus promoting the other presences in a Community of Inquiry (Athabasca University, n.d.). It reassures students that the instructor is present, and paying attention to their progress, even in a distributed learning context. Also, while many users may overtly ignore the on-screen instructor (especially when projected in a smaller window in front of a screencast type recording), they can still subconsciously pick up cues from the instructor's body language that can aid in engagement and overall learning. 

An interesting article from 2021 just came across my Twitter feed. Henderson and Schroeder's (2021) A Sytematic review of instructor presence in instructional videos highlights many of the reasons to include an on-screen instructor in an instructional video that I just mentioned, which they found as part of their systematic literature review of the impacts of on-screen instructors. However, their actual findings are quite interesting. The authors include the following highlights with the paper's Abstract:

​Essentially, there is no definitive answer as to whether the presence of an on-screen instructor actually increases engagement and learning! That's because of inconsistent findings across the literature reviewed. But -- and this is an important "but" -- there is also no evidence to indicate that it is detrimental to include the instructor in the video! The authors call for more research (using a consistent, systematic approach) to determine the actual impact level of instructor on-screen presence, and to offer sound guidance on when to include it, and when it is best not to. 

​In light of this, I find myself "sticking to my guns" on this issue. Even if there are inconsistent findings on the pedagogical benefits of including an instructor on-screen in an instructional video, I do believe that this little bit of extra presence contributes to the bigger picture when promoting engagement, and maximizing the benefits of promoting a Community of Inquiry in our courses!

Power, R. (2020, September 3). Maximizing the Impact of Instructional Video Length. [Web log post]. Power Learning Solutions. https://www.powerlearningsolutions.com/blog/maximizing-the-impact-of-instructional-video-length

Power, R. (2020, April 17). Creating a YouTube Channel for Educators. [YouTube video]. https://youtu.be/Uy_5gOV80LY

Power, R. (2019, January 14). Using YouTube to Share Video in an Online Course. [Web log post]. Power Learning Solutions. https://www.powerlearningsolutions.com/blog/using-youtube-to-share-video-in-an-online-course

Power, R. (2019, January 22). Adding a Human Touch to Online Learning, Right From the Start! [Web log post]. Power Learning Solutions. https://www.powerlearningsolutions.com/blog/adding-a-human-touch-to-online-learning-right-from-the-start

Athabasca University (n.d.). CoI Framework. https://coi.athabascau.ca/coi-model/
​
Henderson, M., & Schroeder, N. (2021). A Systematic review of instructor presence in instructional videos: Effects on learning and affect. Computers and Education Open, 2(2021) 100059. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeo.2021.100059

As many post-secondary institutions prepare to return to in-person classes following the switch to remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, we're all wondering how we can effectively return to classroom teaching with social distancing practices in place. If there's one thing that we've learned from the shift to online teaching and learning, it's that there are a number of digital tools that we can use to share resources and maximize student engagement during virtual classes. Well, the good news is that many of those tools and approaches can also be leveraged in the classroom. 

In preparation for a return to in-person classes at Cape Breton University, my colleagues and I took some time to visit one of our campus' large lecture theatres to record some demonstrations of how we can leverage digital tools, including Microsoft Teams, to engage with our students safely and effectively. The following are a series of videos that I edited from that demonstration session. In these videos, we cover how to:

• Start up Teams to share resources during an in-person class
• Start sharing a presentation and use in-class polls using PowerPoint and Poll Everywhere
• Use Poll Everywhere to administer an open-response poll
• Use videos and Padlet
• Use Kahoot!
• Collaborate with Breakout Groups
• Help students navigate to Teams resources
• Get students to present resources using Teams

Resources Referenced in Demonstrations

• Kahoot! (instructor portal)
• Kahoot.it (student portal)
• Padlet
• Poll Everywhere

Microsoft Teams
Access the complete video library of Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks for Educators at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIJ8QfsveW2Zp0ksxQAoBMqZkRvTyF1pa

Moodle
Access the complete library of Moodle Tips and Tricks for Educators at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIJ8QfsveW2Zbm4pm-W6rtdI_vj4gnDMM