Mary J. S. Broussard – Instructional Designer

Author: maryjsbroussard

  • Whiteboard Animation on Mind Mapping using Audacity, Illustrator, and Animate

    Whiteboard Animation on Mind Mapping using Audacity, Illustrator, and Animate

    Title: Mind Mapping

    Audience: General

    Date: December 2024

    Software Utilized for the Project: Audacity, Illustrator, and Animate

    About the Project: 

    I am a passionate mind mapper. I use mind maps for everything, particularly brainstorming and synthesizing information before writing. I frequently show students how to mind map as a way to use informal writing to solve research writing problems. However, the maps that I make on the spot are pretty sloppy and don’t show the depth of thinking that mind maps can facilitate. I have some other mind maps that I spent a lot of time on, but I admittedly spent too much time on the visuals, so they’re also not good examples for encouraging students to think with mind maps.

    The topic of mind mapping lends itself to a whiteboard animation. Tools like Vyond and its competitors can create whiteboard animations more quickly than from-scratch animations. However, you can’t easily create a whole mind map and you’d be restricted in your design.

    I first created my mind map with pencil and paper, then translated that rough map into a digital file using Adobe Illustrator. Next, I turned my Illustrator file into a large PNG image and made it the base image in my Adobe Animate file. I put a white rectangle over the entire PNG file and slowly erased the cover in time to the narration.

    I ran into a few technical problems in Adobe Animate. Most animated scenes are very short, generally only a few seconds long and compiled in another program. However, because my mind map couldn’t be broken down into scenes, I needed to create the main animation in a single six-and-a-half minute timeline in Animate. To make the timeline a little more manageable, I used a low 12-frames-per-second rate. Additionally, there were some challenges to ensuring the audio and visuals aligned properly on the timeline, but I was eventually able to overcome those.

    This lesson will be useful to share with students doing research projects, although I intentionally kept it general enough to be useful to a broad audience. The link below leads to the video on YouTube, which includes captions.

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  • Augmented Reality (AR) Using Blender and Adobe Aero

    Augmented Reality (AR) Using Blender and Adobe Aero

    Title: Roman Triclinium and Pompeii Bar

    Audience: Bucknell University students

    Date: Fall 2024

    Software Utilized for the Project: Blender, Adobe Aero, Photoshop

    About the Project: After taking a course on virtual and augmented reality (AR) in my instructional design program, I have been interested in applying small-scale AR in my practice at Bucknell University.

    In the summer of 2024, a Classics professor expressed interest in recreating scenes for her Archaeology of Food course in the fall. Her first request was a Roman triclinium, which is a dining room with couches as Romans ate while lying down.

    We met to discuss what she wanted and she provided me with a number of image references. I kept her informed on my progress as I learned Blender well enough to create the furniture. I struggled most with creating the headrests as they were a challenging shape to build.

    Once I had the couches and table built, I placed them in Adobe Aero with the wall, which I took from a museum image. As the wall could easily get in the way of students being able to explore the couches and tables, I added a little interactivity with a button that could remove or replace the wall.

    Roman Triclinium

    The last step was adding food to the table. The professor provided images of the kinds of food Romans would eat. I was able to download some from Sketchfab.com, although I was encountering large file sizes and materials errors when I brought them into Aero, which detracted from the learning experience. I was able to create some of my own food and plates in Blender and use some of the downloaded foods that were not causing issues.

    Implementation of this experience went well. One student reported being very happy to explore what they were learning about in class in this way and not just through 2D images in their textbook.

    I have also created a second experience for the class which will be implemented later in the semester. This is a recreation of a recently excavated bar in Pompeii. The counter contains numerous clay pots that would have been filled with various foods. The paintings are the actual paintings from the excavated site, which I was able to pull from images online, form into the correct shape in Photoshop, and apply to the counter in Aero.

    Pompeii Bar

    I hope these examples and students’ reactions to them will lead to more opportunities for 3D modeling and AR experiences at Bucknell University.

  • Original Animation in Adobe Animate and ToonSquid

    Original Animation in Adobe Animate and ToonSquid

    Title: Original animation in Adobe Animate and ToonSquid

    Audience: General

    Date: Ongoing

    Software Utilized for the Projects: Adobe Animate, ToonSquid, Audacity, and Camtasia

    About the Project: Having learned how to animate training videos with Vyond as part of my instructional design coursework, I became interested in animation from scratch. Using an all-access pass to Bloop Animation classes, Adobe Animate, Audacity, and Camtasia, I began creating my own animations.

    My animation skills are a work in progress. I have a solid understanding of the technical skills and I am currently exploring how to use the technology in a way that works with the limitations of my drawing skills. I can draw, but I cannot draw the same thing over and over as is required in frame-by-frame animation.

    The first two examples of animation are exercises in digital storytelling while the third is instructional in nature.

    Masque of the Red Death

    This video was created in fall of 2023 using the text from the last paragraph of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” Each scene was drawn in Adobe Animate and compiled in Camtasia. The sound was created in Audacity with music from the Storyblocks database.

    “Bad Mom”

    This animated short is entirely original from a short essay I wrote a few years ago. It was begun in the summer of 2023 and completed in the summer of 2024. I was striving for a “minimum viable product” and achieved slightly more than that. Not all of the drawing is my best, but it tells the story I wanted to tell.

    I recorded the audio in Audacity, the music is from the Storyblocks database, and the scenes were compiled in Camtasia.

    Summary of John Polidori’s “The Vampyre”

    Summary of John Polidori’s “The Vampyre”

    When I taught my first-year seminar on vampires, my students struggled to understand the 200-year-old prose of this short story, the official first English-language story about vampires. If I were to teach the course again, I would point them to specific parts of the text (perhaps using Perusall) that described the vampire, Lord Ruthven, and be able to watch this video for the overarching story.

    These animations from scratch are very time consuming and impractical for a replacement to programs such as Vyond. However, from-scratch animation affords almost unlimited flexibility for creating short original animations when what is needed is outside of Storyline’s motion graphics or Vyond’s animation capabilities. Such animation is already frequently used in educational videos such as PBS’s video on civil engineering or videos by Kurzgesagt.

    I can see from-scratch animation being useful in explaining how a piece of machinery works, for example, so that the machine in the video matches what learners will use in real life.

    2D animation has become a passion, and I am interested in exploring 3D animation. I have begun learning 3D modeling and very basic animation on Blender:

    Very short Blender animation going through the wardrobe into Narnia

  • Framework for Information Literacy Videos

    Framework for Information Literacy Videos

    Title: Framework for Information Literacy Videos

    Audience: College students at Bucknell and beyond

    Date: Summer 2022

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    Software Utilized for the Project: Vyond and Audacity

    About the Project: These six videos were created in the summer of 2023 for Bucknell University. My supervisor was enthusiastic about creating more tutorials (videos or interactive) on information literacy topics. It seemed logical to invest time in creating videos for the six big ideas of information literacy as outlined in the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL’s) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education document. While similar videos have been created by other academic libraries, they tended to be limited to two or three minutes and I feel that these complex ideas need a bit more time to be appropriately represented.

    I wrote the scripts with feedback from a colleague, Ally Wood. I have also infused my understanding of rhetoric as it relates to information literacy throughout these videos. The videos were developed in Vyond, using Audacity to record the voiceovers and music from Bucknell’s subscription to the Storyblocks database. I chose a video format and the whiteboard animation style as I felt these suited these theoretical topics.

    These are being marketed to Bucknell faculty to incorporate into their classes, but I was careful to keep these institution-neutral (even if they do frequently reference higher education) so that they could be used by librarians at other institutions. This choice was inspired by the viral success of my Goblin Threat game at Lycoming College.

    The links on this portfolio go to my YouTube channel, but these six videos are officially posted on the LibraryITBucknell channel, where the statistics show each video has been viewed about 300-600 times. A year after they were created, another librarian reached out to me to ask if he could use them with his students, pointing out that they were not officially labeled with Creative Commons licenses, which was quickly remedied. This shows that they are being valued by my librarian peers.

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  • Common Read Video 2023

    Common Read Video 2023

    Title: Common Reading 2023: Sitting Pretty

    Audience: First-Year students at Bucknell University

    Date: Summer 2023

    Software Utilized for the Project: Vyond, Audacity, and Adobe Premier Rush

    About the Project: When I began working at Bucknell University in 2022, one of the first things I volunteered to be a part of was the Common Reading selection committee. I was pleased to be successful in advocating for a disability-themed book, Rebekah Taussig’s Sitting Pretty. I also volunteered to create the video that would be posted in the campus learning management system (Moodle).

    Dr. Taussig makes it clear that she writes primarily from her perspective as a wheelchair user even as she connects her experience to the broader disability literature. One of my instructional goals is to help students understand that disability experiences are very broad, and they happen all around us even if we don’t see them.

    Working with the director of the Office of Accessibility Resources (OAR), we put out a call for volunteers from the Bucknell community to share their disability experiences. Some allowed me to interview them in person, others were more comfortable responding by email. I sorted the responses into categories to show trends for the “Voices of Disability” portion of the video. I also interviewed two professors and the director of the OAR to show other aspects of disability at Bucknell, and then put it all together using Vyond for the animation, and Adobe Premier Rush to assemble the entire video.

    In this project, I prioritized sensitivity and anonymity to my participants. While I was concerned the choice to make all participants anonymous may contribute to the stigma of disability, their safety and comfort were my top priority. I did not want them to feel any pressure to disclose.

    I sent the almost-finalized video to the participants to confirm they were comfortable with how I represented them. There was some negotiation and changes required before it was truly finalized. I also got their permission to make this video public beyond its intended purpose.

    I am pleased with how the final project turned out and hope that it added to students’ common reading experience in a way that has a positive impact on their lives and the lives of those around them.

    Video to accompany Bucknell University’s 2023 Common Reading selection: Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig

  • Synthesis Strategies for Research Papers

    Synthesis Strategies for Research Papers

    Title: Synthesis Strategies for Research Papers

    Audience: Bucknell University students

    Date: Fall 2022

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    Software Utilized for the Project: Articulate Storyline, Audacity, and Adobe XD for mock-ups

    About the Project: While students consistently say that selecting a topic is the hardest part of a research project, research and feedback from some professors indicates that they also struggle with synthesizing information from multiple sources. I find this to be the hardest part of the research process and it is at the highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. A neuroscience professor I worked closely with observed her upper-level students tended to write literature reviews that were arranged by source, like annotated bibliographies, rather than grouping information based on topic.

    Students clearly need more help with understanding what synthesis is and some strategies on how to do it, but they are not at the point of need for these skills when professors invite me to their classes, which tends to be at the beginning of the research process. An online tutorial can be used at the point of need, either voluntarily by students or it can be assigned by a professor.

    This project ended up taking two different paths simultaneously. I used this project for my Introduction to Instructional Design course, but ended up building it faster at work than the course assignments allowed for.

    Title page of tutorial titled Synthesis for Research Papers

    My instructional design documentation shows a deliberate process, but the final interactive tutorial I built for my library has fewer assessment questions. The reason for this is that within the Instructional Design course, we were designing stand-alone learning objects and all learning objectives needed to be assessed within the tutorial. In contrast, while I offer this tutorial on the library website, I am also marketing it to faculty who then have the option of assigning mind maps and note cards to students as part of the mini assignments built into the research process within their coursework. The existing tutorial is interactive and asks students to demonstrate an understanding of the material presented, but not all learning objectives are assessed within the tutorial, and that is appropriate for the real-world context of the tutorial.

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  • Goblin Threat Plagiarism Game – 15th Anniversary

    Goblin Threat Plagiarism Game – 15th Anniversary

    Title: Goblin Threat plagiarism game

    Audience: Lycoming College Students

    Date: 2009

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    Software Utilized for the Project: Originally Adobe Flash

    About the Project: I originally created Goblin Threat in 2009 using Adobe Flash and its programming language Action Script 2.0, which I learned from Beginning Flash Game Programming for Dummies. I created the game idea, the graphics, and the programming and worked with an intern to design the questions.

    I wrote about Goblin Threat’s design and development in an article titled “Using Online Games to Fight Plagiarism: A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down,” which shows how the game is rooted in theory and research on game-based learning. Goblin Threat was always intended to be gamified tutorial rather than a game, what I often call chocolate-covered broccoli after hearing that description in a presentation. By adding game elements and some humor to an important topic that no student or instructor is excited to address, the learning experience is much more enjoyable for most students.

    While I designed the game for Lycoming College students, only one question is institution-specific. I posted the link to the game in a professional listserv in response to a question by another librarian and the game quickly went viral. I received dozens of requests to use the game by other librarians and English teachers, and clearly many others were also linking to it.

    In 2019, it was transferred to a current technology by a talented student intern (press release). Fifteen years later, it is still being used by high schools and colleges all over the world. It continues to get hundreds of thousands of visits each year, which is why I am still including it in my portfolio.

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  • Podcasting: The Masked Professor

    Podcasting: The Masked Professor

    Title: The Masked Professor

    Audience: Lycoming College faculty

    Date: Fall 2020

    Software Utilized for the Project: Audacity, Podbean, and Zoom

    About the Project: Lycoming College was a rare institution of education that returned to entirely in-person instruction in the fall of 2020. While it was fully in-person, it didn’t feel like any instruction we had ever deployed before with social distancing and masks. We were reminded of how contextual all instruction is.

    It was a time of high stress and anxiety and low interpersonal connection. Despite the historically strong sense of community among the faculty at Lycoming, at this time there weren’t many forums to share successes and challenges. I was looking for ways to positively impact the faculty community and came up with the idea of a podcast called The Masked Professor.

    The podcast had two different kinds of episodes, interviews with professors and presentations on relevant topics related to mental wellness during COVID. I’m grateful for the things I learned in the research episodes, but I definitely found the interview episodes were much more engaging and I am sure more interesting to faculty. The interviews used three open-ended questions as their structure:

    1. What are the challenges of teaching during COVID
    2. What is going well?
    3. What question do you have for others?

    I announced the podcast two or three times on the faculty listserv and posted new episodes on my personal Facebook account as I am friends with so many members of the target audience. In hindsight, I should have marketed it more, but admittedly many people did not have the mental bandwidth to listen to this that semester.

    The podcast lasted from August 2020 until January 2021 when my workload became too much to continue it.

    Here are some sample episodes:

    • Interview with Professor Andrew Stafford (French)
    • Interview with Professor Jeremy Ramsey (Chemistry)
    • Interview with Professor Chris Hill (Theatre)

  • eBooks from OverDrive to Kindle

    eBooks from OverDrive to Kindle

    Title: eBooks from OverDrive to Kindle

    Audience: OverDrive and Kindle users

    Date: Spring 2022

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    Software Utilized for the Project: Adobe Captivate

    About the Project: This software simulation lesson was created in Adobe Captivate for my Introduction to Authoring course in Spring 2022.

    My public library subscribes to OverDrive and I frequently use it to download audiobooks to my phone. However, previous attempts to download eBooks to a dedicated eReader used to require special software and a physical USB connection. I found it tedious and had stopped using my public library’s OverDrive eBook collection.

    At the time of this assignment, I had recently discovered that improvements in technologies have made downloading OverDrive’s eBooks to my Kindle much easier. I wanted to create a lesson to share how easy it is and hopefully encourage people to take advantage of the thousands of free eBooks their public library offers.

    The learning objectives for this lesson were:

    Upon completion of this course, the learner will:

    • Locate OverDrive
    • Log into OverDrive with their public library card number
    • Select an eBook to digitally borrow
    • Send it to their Kindle

    I love these interactive software simulations. I believe having real hands-on experience with immediate feedback is a very valuable way to train employees on how to use a new software or do a new process that involves software.

    I imagine one downside is these software simulations probably have to be recreated fairly often as software interfaces change so often. Even small differences between what is shown in an online tutorial and the live software learners are trying to use can add barriers to successfully using the software in the real world. Still, these are an important tool for corporate training.

  • Context of Dracula

    Context of Dracula

    Title: The Context of Dracula

    Audience: First-year students

    Date: Spring 2022

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    Software Utilized for the Project: Articulate Storyline and Audacity

    About the Project: I have twice taught a first-year seminar on vampires and one of the first texts we read is Bram Stoker’s Dracula in its entirety. It is by far the most important work on vampires in the English language and it does a great job of setting up a key theme of the class, which is the concept of perspective. However, the novel is very long and takes up nearly a third of the class. Students are much more engaged with the more modern short stories that use vampires to explore social issues and have asked for more time with those. As one part of cutting down class time spent on Dracula, I would like to give them a homework lesson on the context of the novel. This would be posted in the campus LMS (Moodle), which I already used for keeping track of grades, so keeping track of lesson completion would be streamlined.

    I created this interactive lesson in Articulate Storyline for my Introduction to Authoring course in Spring 2022. The lesson was designed to meet the following learning objectives:

    After engaging with this online lesson, students will be able to:

    • Name the author of Dracula and a few key facts about him
    • Define “epistolary novel”
    • Recite some of the characteristics of Victorian England and Gothic literature
    • Place the novel Dracula in a timeline of other well-known pieces of vampire literature

    I am particularly proud of the timeline as it required some advanced trigger programming that was beyond what was taught in the course. It originally had images of the book covers, but I removed them when I was unsure about copyright. Upon further reflection, the book covers would have added a lot to the experience and I cannot imagine that any publisher would have cared if I had used the images of the covers, as it would be promoting their books.

    I hope to one day have the opportunity to teach this class again. This will be one important tool in condensing our time spent on Dracula so we can spend more time on more modern vampire stories.

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