Jackie Van Nice

E-Learning Goodness by Jackie Van Nice

About

Hi!  I’m Jackie Van Nice. Thanks for visiting my site.

What I Do:

Run my e-learning design business and share design ideas, how-tos, freebies, and tips about self-employment – in my blog, in online communities, and in real life. Encouraging each other to succeed seems like the way to go.

My Résumé

I don’t use résumés anymore because it’s easy to see what I do on this site – but I made this one for an Articulate ELH Challenge and it’s my favorite ever. You can launch it here. Be sure to explore the cover page to get all the scoop!

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

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What I’m Excited About:

I’m excited about countless creative things I get to see and do every day, but I’m also proud and excited that I received a Brandon Hall Excellence Award for doing the visual design and development for a wonderfully innovative course on mental health. The course is designed to help learners identify, understand, and compassionately respond to someone who may be experiencing challenges with mental health and/or substance use, and I was honored to be a part of it.

3 of the Most Challenging Things I’ve Ever Done

  • Going all-in to invest in and learn e-learning from the ground up in the depths of a recession – on my own, without a client in sight, and not knowing if I’d ever get one. Turns out a great one found me almost immediately and kept me busy for years.
  • Spending a year teaching in barely-post-Soviet Hungary. I’d save up my forints to take the 12-hour round trip across the border to Vienna where I’d do a breathtaking sprint to find fresh vegetables, teaching materials, and people who would speak to me before racing to catch the return train. The upside was my mail was only set on fire once, and the recuperative trip to Greece was heaven.
  • Temporarily working as a live-in cook for a couple on Seattle’s Lake Washington where alcohol, dementia, an incontinent poodle, and fear collided. But the blackberry picking was fabulous.

Actually, you can see where those fit into my Scenic Route to Becoming an E-learning Designer if you’d like. I created it for another Articulate ELH Challenge.

Select Image to See My Path

Select Image to See My Path

More About My Career

  • I’ve been a self-employed instructional designer for more than 19 years, laser-focused on e-learning for the last 14.
  • Teaching in Vienna, Austria was one of my favorite gigs. The school’s director observed me teaching in London and recruited me on the spot.
  • Throughout my career I’ve worked with scads of nonprofits from tiny public radio stations on the West Coast to the Zuni tribe in New Mexico, the NAACP in DC, global NGOs, the American Red Cross, social services, libraries, parishes, and so many more – including a charming little snow-covered charter school up in Land O’ Lakes Wisconsin. I love a good nonprofit.
  • Humboldt State University was kind enough to bestow degrees in Business and German on me. I got my MA in German from the University of Oregon (they also taught me to teach), and savored a year of grad school at the Universität Konstanz in Germany that I never (ever) wanted to end.

The Rest of the Story

Home

Home

  • I was born in California and currently live near Hilton Head Island in the Lowcountry of South Carolina where I happily commune with personable turtles, alligators, marsh birds, and black fox squirrels.
  • My biggest high is being mistaken for a native speaker of German; though at this point it’s rare I get to practice. But who knows – my dream of going back to live in Germany (or Austria or Switzerland) and speak it all the time could still come true, and then I’d get all that lovely fluency back.

Stay in Touch!

If you’d like to be the first to get my latest posts with e-learning design ideas and demos, tips, and free goodies – be sure to subscribe to my blog. You can also connect with me by dropping me a line!