Essays on instructional design, AI in learning, and the craft underneath.
What an Instructional Design Founder Actually Builds
Most AI course builders are like a new golf driver that promises an extra 20 yards. What a practitioner actually builds is course management.
- Where Education Is Actually Going
AI in Course Creation, Honestly
The hype around AI in course creation is deafening. But beyond the marketing, what is it actually good for, and where does it fall short? Here's what I've seen.
6 min - How Things Get Made
Expertise Scaling: The Mission Underneath CourseAgent
Most expertise is locked in the heads of people too busy to teach. The real bottleneck isn't a lack of knowledge, but the sheer difficulty of turning it into a course that actually works.
4 min - The Invisible Architecture
The Quality Standard for Professional Learning
We celebrate high completion rates and happy learners, but the only metric that matters is whether anything actually changes back at the desk.
4 min - How Things Get Made
Knowledge Transfer Is a Format Problem
When we ask an expert to "write it all down", we've already chosen a format that guarantees failure. The real task isn't knowledge transfer; it's knowledge translation.
6 min - The Invisible Architecture
AI tools for instructional design: a practical comparison
A working guide for instructional designers evaluating AI tools - content generators vs architecture-first platforms - and how to choose by methodology, not marketing.
4 min - The Invisible Architecture
Pedagogical Intelligence: What AI Needs to Borrow
Most AI course tools generate content. The real task is building one that knows how to teach. This is the gap I call pedagogical intelligence, and it changes everything.
5 min - The Invisible Architecture
The Invisible Architecture of Professional Training
Most training fails not because the content is wrong, but because its invisible architecture is weak. The structure, the sequencing, the assessments – that's where the learning actually happens.
4 min - The Invisible Architecture
Content Is Visible. Structure Is Invisible.
When training doesn't work, people blame the content. After a thousand courses, I can tell you the problem is almost always underneath.
1 min - Where Education Is Actually Going
Personalisation in Corporate Training Is Mostly a Lie
Adaptive learning paths in a twenty-minute compliance module aren't personalisation. They're a settings menu wearing a lab coat.
1 min - The Economics of Getting It Wrong
The Real Cost of a Regulation Change
A regulation changes. Your safeguarding course is now non-compliant. Update quote: eight thousand pounds. Your quarterly budget: twelve. So you run the outdated course.
5 min - How Things Get Made
The 7am Round
There's a specific quality to a golf course before 7:30am when nobody else is there. It's where most of my design problems get solved.
1 min