Photo by www.beckieegan.co.uk

I’m Helen Lapwood. I’m an instructional designer / learning designer who specialises in curriculum curation.

My background is in teaching. I trained and taught as a Secondary English teacher – and I loved it. There truly is nothing more rewarding than helping a student realise their potential and find power in being able to control their own words. I became Head of Department and really enjoyed creating the curriculum and resources my team would teach from each term. I would spend hours of my weekends and holidays creating carefully designed short, medium and long term plans and the accompanying resources to go with them. Fascinated by how my students engaged with my lessons, I continued to refine and edit each plan as I taught. After doing this for several years, and learning how to plan and write content both online (for students who couldn’t attend class) and face-to-face teaching, I wondered: what if I could do online curriculum designing for a living?

I specialise in transforming content into engaging and innovative online courses. I have extensive experience in both the commercial eLearning world (previous clients include the BBC, NHS and British Sugar) and the academic eLearning sphere (including several Russell Group universities). Over the last ten years I have worked full-time at an innovative eLearning agency (Epic – now known as GP Strategies), a business and law specialist university (BPP) and at one of the biggest UK publishing firms (Pearson). I have gained a unique background in teaching, academia and online design. I can design for all LMSs including Moodle, Blackboard and Canvas. I can also write for eLearning packages including Articulate, Lectora, Captivate and GoMo.

I can create engaging and creative courses in any subject matter: from tax and data protection, all the way to architecture and food hygiene. Due to my background in education and from working both at a University (BPP) and one of the largest publishers in the UK (Pearson), I am known for having a niche set of skills in converting face-to-face University courses into online learning experiences. I am particularly good at creating all of the documentation and tracking to demonstrate that courses align to accreditation requirements (i.e. demonstrating the alignment and planning of the learning objectives, content, assessment and accreditation levels).

My favourite part of the job is working with the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to help them realise their vision online. I’m a committed life-long learner and getting to work with experts in their field as they teach me all about their subject is an absolute privilege. I’m a great project manager who knows that academics and SMEs need to be given the time and space to do what they do best (teach!).

My husband and I live in Norwich with our children. I freelance as an ID/LD so that I can make the most of time with my family as we explore this fine city. I’m a big advocate of flexible working and skills-sharing.

Feel free to look at some examples of my work and to check out my Linkedin for further information and recommendations. If you think you have a project that we could work together on, or just want to get in touch to talk learning design, then please do.