The "accidental" developer

jasonadal

My partner, who is a front end web designer, posted this interesting article about the expectations, misconceptions and devaluing of specific skill sets in the web developers' world.

As I was reading it, I often thought of eLearning developers and the misconceptions some companies have about what we do. I thought of the lengthy discussion explaining to my current supervisor that I was fulfilling 4 roles, not just one. I wrote all the content. I completed all of the instructional design. I created and developed all of the multimedia necessary for the courses. And, of course, completed the development and testing.

I refer to myself as the "accidental developer" because I underestimated what I needed to know to bring my design to full fruition. I "fell" into development because I "...am a really good at training delivery and development, plus you're really technical." I'm pretty sure I'm not alone, especially since there's an entire book dedicated to the topic.

In any case, there are many parallels as developers to the discussion in the article. Companies think or expect that as an eLearning developer, I know ALL of the things that go into course creation (content, design, multimedia, front end development). The bottom line is that we don't and it may not be beneficial to, have that expectation of ourselves, much less our supervisors.
<p id="5e10" class="graf graf--h3 graf--leading graf--title">Is there any value in people who cannot write JavaScript?</p>

jvalley4735

I relate to this one so many levels.  I am an accidental Instructional Designer.  Here's a personal blog I wrote on my journey at the time back in 2014. I think it needs some revising  http://jennifervalley.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-road-to-becoming-accidental-id.html