Moshood, tell us a bit about your background before Alison.
First off, I am 27 years old, a Nigerian and a B.Eng. degree holder in Electrical & Electronic Engineering. Prior to my working with Alison, I did freelance work, including writing articles for a friend’s blog, annotating pictures and videos for deep learning applications, and also installing distribution transformers and solar panels. I also started a blog, where I write about energy and power systems. You can check it out here.
How did you discover Alison, and what was your experience as a learner?
Alison is probably the first e-learning platform I discovered back in my university days. That was around 2012 or so. A friend introduced me to the platform. When I checked it out, I liked how easy it was to navigate so I proceeded to study a course. The course structure made it easy for me to understand the course content. And, there were assessment questions too to help me learn more. Learning with Alison was a good experience, and still is.
Why did you pursue the chance to become an Alison Contractor?
I love to teach and spread knowledge because it gives me the opportunity to positively impact other people and also learn more in the process. So, when Alison came calling for Contractors, it struck me as a great chance to help spread knowledge to millions of people around the world. I grabbed the chance. Also, it was an opportunity to earn some cash.
How did you find the remote Contractor training?
Amazing and well structured, from the training courses to the test course, and on to developing courses which are now live. There was enough time to learn about the Alison publishing methods and I had a mentor who was ready to answer my questions. With the help of my assigned mentor, Kieran [Alison’s Instructional Designer], it all went great.
What was the first course you published on Alison? How was it?
The first course I published was titled Introduction to Biomedical Research. This course came at a time when many people wanted to know about the clinical process in biomedical research. The development of the course was easy, thanks to the mentorship of my assigned mentor, Kieran. The course is video based so I had to do some video editing with the aim of easing the learning process. The knowledge from the training courses was instrumental in developing this course and other courses.
How has your decision to work for Alison affected your career path?
At first, I didn’t think I would be able to handle both the Alison work and some other freelance work that I do. But it turned out I could handle it all well. My time management skills greatly improved.
What’s the best part of working as an Alison Contractor?
The flexibility of working from home. I actually started working as an Alison contractor when the Covid-19 pandemic was getting serious in my country. So when the country went into lockdown, I wasn’t completely locked down. I could still make an impact by developing courses for people to learn. And even though there were deadlines for development of courses, it still afforded me the liberty to develop the courses at my own pace.
If you could publish a course that would teach the world, or yourself, anything, what would it be?
It would be a course on solar power systems. The course would be about the step by step process of designing and installing solar power systems for homes. It would be comprehensive and would most certainly be a skills-based course. There are less resources about this subject on the internet today. I think I will publish this sort of course in the future.
