Hi. I've been in Asia since 1995 and have taught ESL in about a half dozen countries over the years. I have a BA Liberal Arts and completed an MS Ed from Cal State Hayward in Online Teaching and Learning in 2002. I haven't worked in the field, altho I do make lots of material with PowerPoint and Adobe Presenter.

I'd like to switch fields to online curriculum design, and am wondering the best way to go about it. I'm thinking some Adobe Expert Certifications as well as the ASTD certification might get my foot in a door or two. Can anyone offer some comments?

Are you looking to work for a company that does content creation or as an independent contractor?

Hopefully at a company that I can start to get some experience with.

You might consider working as a SME or Subject Matter Expert first. By working with instructional designers, you'll learn a lot about instructional design and what's valuable to certain employers. Many would rather see your experience as an SME than a certificate, I would imagine. But having both would be a plus, it's just a matter of whether you want to invest up front before gaining some experience and finding out what's it's really like.

I think if I were in your shoes I would start talking with vendors to see if they have a need for SMEs.

Hope that helps.

Sheldon Murphy
Solid State Learning
www.sslearn.com