Student Profile Archives

Ginger Butcher
"Reach Out with Multimedia"

Ginger Butcher, an M.A. student in UMBC's ISD (Instructional Systems Development) Training and Development Program, is a project manager with the Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"While working on a multimedia educational project for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, I became fascinated with the educational process behind the technology, and sought to learn more about the pedagogy within educational media, " says Butcher. Her search brought her to UMBC and the ISD master's program. The ISD graduate program at UMBC gives her an all-inclusive approach to the development of educational curriculum.

With a background in graphical arts (her undergraduate degree is in geography and cartography), Butcher combines her mapping skills and knowledge of instructional design to educate teachers and students on NASA Earth Science topics such as 'remote sensing'.

The knowledge gained from her first course in the program at UMBC gave Butcher inspiration to look at NASA Goddard's programs in a different light. Intrigued by the combination of technology and classroom curriculum, she developed a multimedia program that explains the science behind Goddard's research to children.

"I have been able to relate every class project to something I have been doing at work. This gives any school project more interest and makes the program more motivating overall," says Butcher.

Her recent accomplishment, The Adventure of Echo the Bat, is an educational book that introduces students to remote sensing and biodiversity. It teaches students to understand different interpretations of satellite imagery. Echo the Bat was awarded "Outstanding Educational Product" by NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) Review Board and was recommended for broad distribution.

Butcher's goal is to direct and manage the development of multimedia educational products. "The ISD Training and Development Program at UMBC is a fantastic way to learn about a macro approach to the development of training programs and/or educational curriculum," says Butcher.

Link: http://imagers.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (Adventure of Echo the Bat)