Welcome to Small Bite, an easy-to-digest portfolio of my technical work within eLearning.
Why is it called "Small Bite"?
As Instructional Designers, we recognize that learners often juggle multiple responsibilities and are susceptible to distractions. To address this, we intentionally break down course content into manageable segments—what we refer to as "small bites." This approach supports asynchronous learning by allowing students to engage with and absorb material at their own pace.
Rather than overwhelming learners with large volumes of information, it's more effective to structure content into clearly defined modules and chapters. Research indicates that video content around eight minutes in length is ideal for maintaining learner attention and enhancing retention. This method also helps students categorize information into digestible subtopics, which supports long-term understanding.
While course interactivity, peer discussions, and strategic questioning can help extend engagement, it is crucial in eLearning environments to maintain small, focused segments. This minimizes the impact of asynchronous distractions and optimizes the learning experience.
About Me
My first name is William, but I'm best known by my middle name "Cody". For the past two decades I have been working as an Instructional Designer. I've experienced many target audiences and presentation styles. I have developed monthly training for crews. I have presented simulation scenarios for performance objectives. I have led analysis research in curriculum development shops. I have orchestrated film crews for product development. I have created and edited animation, graphics, and video. I have compiled all resources into a project to make an interactive online course capable of asynchronous functions.
This career-journey started within the Air Force. At most of my tours, I became an instructor and eventually became the training manager. I went on to get my Bachelor of Fine Arts and then my Master of Science in Instructional Design. I was added to the Dean's list multiple times, earning a 3.8 GPA.
I worked on Airplanes and Radars in the Air Force, but after service I decided to continue as an Instructional Designer. As of 2025, I have added almost a decade of experience as a contractor and civilian in this field.
My near-term goal is to branch into new areas outside of government, advancing my expertise. My long-term goal is to lead more teams to success and mentor new generations of Instructional Designers.
Below are some posters of my development work. Most of my work is not available to the public due to copyright and sensitive content.
This image is one that I created in use for an "escape room" for an online class.
The typewriter, screen, pen, and paper were added to the library. The theming was a blend of "Hogwarts" and "Steampunk".
This is another course that I created for our safety office. It was a course for our staff and also our students. The objective was to teach them about how to prepare a vehicle for driving and also how to anticipate the dangers. It also covered how to handle road rage incidents.
The design of the course was setup so that the student could choose their own path and make choices that would lead to different outcomes.
This course also served as a test for my creations. I wanted to create the most efficient course within a very short amount of time. I was able to compress the size down 75% and the course was complete within one month. The course is fully interactive. It included all aspects of ADDIE and still gets annual reviews to this day. It was highly successful and gets great reviews.
This course was developed for our training staff. The purpose was to encourage "creative thinking" for instructing.
The course is setup as a dialog between two robots. The robots are talking about how humans have the ability to be creative, while robots are more technical. It brings humor with the robots making fun of humans, sort of a nod to the "Love, Death, and Robots" Netflix series.
This is one of our course Graphic User Interfaces. You can see the many layers that went into developing the Adobe Captivate Project. We went with an Army Aircraft theming and all of the buttons and toggle switches; this took a lot of advanced actions and beta testing. The center was used for streaming video; the left and right side were used for closed caption, instruction, resources, and all other text-based content.