No matter where you are in your career with ISD, volunteering can be great way to give back to the community, gain more diverse hands-on experience and grow your portfolio.
The Magic of Volunteering
In ISD From The Ground Up, our own Professor Chuck Hodell mused: “never underestimate the value of a little professional experience lent to a worthy cause. It is comparable to someone having little knowledge of how an automobile works sitting with their disabled car on the side of the road until a Good Samaritan comes along and performs a bit of magic in the engine and it starts right up.”
If you’re ready to perform a bit of your own magic, the following are some great ways to get started in volunteering:
In partnership with the eLearning Guild, LINGOS’ Global Giveback enables the eLearning community to volunteer their talent, creativity and experience to a consortium of more than 75 humanitarian relief, development, conservation and health organizations.
In the first four years Global Giveback was held, volunteer instructional designers and eLearning developers have created more than 100 eLearning courses to support these global development non-profit organizations. To learn more and to get started, sign up for the Global Giveback Group on LinkedIn.
Volunteers who sign up for the Global Giveback Group on LinkedIn also have access to LINGOS’ newest initiative, Last Mile Learning. Last Mile Learning’s mission is to provide “world-class learning opportunities at no cost to anyone working to improve lives in the developing world.”
Through Last Mile Learning, volunteers are provided with a library of free contextualized professional development courses while development and relief professionals can register to the Last Mile Learning open portal and access courses designed to improve their skills.
Are you interested in designing courseware and educational games for underserved children? e-Learning for Kids is a global, nonprofit foundation dedicated to “fun and free learning on the Internet for children ages 5-12.”
As of 2012, e-Learning for Kids courses have been used by 4.5 million children in more than 190 countries in both the developing and developed world. Watch the video below to learn more about volunteering for e-Learning for Kids.
Idealist is a great way to search for specific causes that interest you, to network with experienced colleagues, and to create content for your portfolio that speaks to who you are and what you want to do.
You can even tailor your search to your specific needs as a volunteer, including the amount of time you are able to commit, the duration of the job, and the times of day you are available. You don’t need to have an Idealist account to search, so feel free to explore. You never know… the perfect opportunity could be just a few clicks away!
Have you ever volunteered your ISD skills? Tell us about it.
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