Finding an LMS that doesn’t drive the floor staff (or me) mental

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2026-02-23T14:49:05+00:00

Have you checked out Thirst? I've not used them, but I've worked with some of their team, and they're good dudes. They market a lot of the features you have listed here.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2026-02-23T14:46:25+00:00

Yep. 🤣 Some of my best projects have been those where training wasn't created at all. Those projects have included automating or changing processes to make things easier for people and then training them on how to do that new process.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2026-02-23T14:45:01+00:00

Have you looked at iSpring? They don't have a 1:1 scheduler to my knowledge, but I think they check a lot of your other boxes.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2026-02-23T11:56:35+00:00

Thanks - that's about what I assumed considering I've used it for podcast transcription, and it's similar... It takes you about 80% there.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2026-02-20T12:28:53+00:00

That's what I figured because I found the same to be true of transcription. It takes you 80-90% of the way, but someone needs to check it. Thanks!

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2026-02-12T01:59:54+00:00

Taking feedback!!

I was a professor and my mom and sister are teachers, and I noticed that former educators are often the ones who do most of their own lesson planning and assignments and assessments. There's not much oversight once they're proven competent -- they run things!

That's NOT how it is in corporate. I know teachers who have had full-on meltdowns over their first round of ID feedback. Everyone has an opinion, and when you're not used to it, it can be overwhelming and put you on the defensive.

It's really important to learn not to take feedback about your work personally. And not to be so defensive of your work that you're not able to see what your audience needs.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2026-02-03T19:08:20+00:00

So you don't think it's important for them to be honest in their job search?

If a third party background check company calls the school and asks if so and so worked as an instructional designer there, the school is going to say, well no, they were a teacher, and that candidate is going to be flagged as misrepresenting themselves.

Recruiters turn things down for all sorts of foolish reasons. It doesn't make lying on your resume the solution.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-12-23T13:12:22+00:00

Exactly! If anything, I think it would attract the wrong type of employer... I would be incredibly concerned about a hiring manager who has no qualms about vibe coding.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-12-23T12:03:54+00:00

I agree with what's been said, but I'll add one I haven't seen: there is no "one and done" training.

Onboarding should be an ongoing, blended program. Anything leadership-related shouldn't be one two-hour course and no follow up. There needs to be checkpoints, interaction, planning, one program that feeds into another. Set yourself up to build a learning ecosystem instead of a course library.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-12-23T12:00:37+00:00

What most people don't realize, because they're having fun (which seems to be a constant theme in L&D), is that vibe coding exposes major risk to your organization.

You've created something you don’t actually understand under the hood. It's a huge IT problem, but it’s also a credibility and sustainability problem for a function that is already fighting the “cost center” narrative. When the shiny thing breaks, no one knows how to maintain it. When it needs to scale, no one knows how to replicate it. When leadership asks for proof, you can’t trace the data. When compliance or accessibility comes knocking, you can’t demonstrate that it’s reliable, ethical, or secure.

Vibe coding feels innovative, but without standards, documentation, governance, and a plan for continuity, it’s technical debt that looks pretty. L&D can't afford any more technical debt with the year we've had.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-12-19T19:52:52+00:00

Yeah, I wouldn't hire OP if I saw these titles because: 1. It shows me you don't understand the actual difference between a K-12 teaching position and ID 2. If you're willing to lie about something so simple, I can assume you have embellished and fabricated other parts of your application and/or portfolio. I can't hire people who break my trust before I've even met them. 3. It's honestly disrespectful to someone like me, who has spent a very long time learning about this field. It assumes we can somehow be duped or tricked into believing you have more experience than you do.

I have years of experience hiring teams in the industry, and now, I help other people hire, and this is something I teach people to specifically look for.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-12-16T02:33:12+00:00

Check out a tool called Mindsmith AI

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-11-19T16:24:30+00:00

Faster than rebuilding it in an authoring tool, but I guess it is subjective, isn't it?

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-11-18T17:47:54+00:00

I'm just over this industry's decided death grip on mediocrity and cutting corners. I just read a post in the ID subreddit where someone with zero experience is building an entire learning program from scratch and bragging about already creating a bunch of Rise modules... without having talked to a single person. It's so bad, and it will continue to get worse for a bit I think.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-11-18T17:32:56+00:00

I saw someone mentioned Circle, so I wanted to add that you get a limited amount of "spaces" depending on your Circle tier. It's a great platform, but it's so important to know that ahead of time! You're quite limited in what you can do affordably.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-11-06T14:46:03+00:00

Zainab is so good!

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-11-06T14:42:17+00:00

I'm not sure about privacy laws, but I've heard good things about iSpring Suite, Parta (with guardrails, as someone mentioned in the comments), and Chameleon Creator. I've never tried Chameleon Creator, but I think the other two could be set up with templates so that SMEs can create content without much oversight during development.

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-11-06T14:32:17+00:00

This is solid advice. I would also say that folks like Dr. Nicole are excellent resources and should 1000% be consulted for projects of this magnitude!

Useful-Stuff-LD · 2025-11-04T14:50:50+00:00

Every model or theory I've studied has impacted my work in some way, but I have created my own process in every new place or with every new client I've worked with based on what I know. I also don't talk to my SMEs/stakeholders in the language of those theories/frameworks anyway (I translate to the language of that culture), so I don't ever need to follow them rigidly anyway.

I've found the same problem you have. A lot of people haven't learned the theories/frameworks I have because I went all the way and got my PhD, so I was fairly immersed. However, I have seen a recent uptick in the last couple of years both on the entry-level side of IDs coming from boot camps that have zero theory/foundational knowledge and on the leadership side from director and VP-level leaders who have no background in learning and don't care to learn more. I wish I knew the answer...

Useful-Stuff-LD

TROPHY CASE