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A
free, open-source collection of more than 3,700 web-based learning materials
designed for faculty and students in higher education is now widely
available. The Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online
Teaching (MERLOT) features a continually growing collection of online
learning materials, peer reviews, and links to a range of other materials
to help faculty enhance instruction.
MERLOT
is sponsored by 27 partners-chiefly higher education systems and associations,
including CIC and the National Association of Independent Colleges and
Universities. The site's home page address is http://www.merlot.org/Home.po.
A ten-minute video introduction to MERLOT is available at the following
site: http://taste.merlot.org/movies/movie.html.
The
main organizing principle for these electronic materials is by academic
field, and a dozen disciplinary teams have been reviewing and categorizing
them. Below, several independent college faculty members, serving on
disciplinary review panels, highlight some especially promising examples:
Biology
David Marcey, Fletcher Jones Professor of Developmental Biology,
California Lutheran University (CA)
The eSkeletons Project (http://www.eSkeletons.org)
allows users to view the bones of a human, chimpanzee, and baboon by
selecting a bone from the list of four bone types on the skeletal image.
A detailed look at each bone from six viewing angles is provided, along
with the option to select another bone or make a comparison with another
species.
Another
interesting site, Synthetic Theory of Evolution (http://anthro.palomar.edu/synthetic/Default.htm),
consists of nine short tutorials that progressively lead the student
through the fundamentals of the modern synthesis of evolutionary concepts.
The tutorials include: Hardy-Weinberg Model, Recombin-ation, Mutations,
Small Population Effects, Non-random Mating, Natural Selection, Gene
Flow, and Micro and Macro Evolution. The site contains a glossary, links
to other sites on evolution, and four general questions designed as
entry points to web-based research by students. Each tutorial includes
links to sound files for pronunciation of key terms, links to the glossary,
and interactive practice quizzes, with immediate feedback for the student.
Graphics and tables augment the presentation of concepts.
Virtual
Foliage
is an exceptional collection of plant pictures with links to image sets,
course pages, and teaching tools for botany, systematics, mycology,
and the vegetation of Wisconsin. Within this site (http://www.wisc.edu/botany/virtual.html),
users will find more than 6,000 pictures that can be used in a number
of plant and plant-related courses. Most of the pictures are targeted
for a survey of the plant kingdom and related species, although there
are excellent links to fungi and very good images of over 100 woody
genera. There are also images of microscopic and staining techniques
which can be hard to find, but useful for those teaching courses where
results don't always turn out as expected. The most useful part of this
overall site is within the Links to Course Pages. Lecture outlines,
along with links to images, are provided to facilitate courses in General
Botany, Plant Systematics, and Dendrology.
Business
Katrina Zalatan, Assistant Professor of Management, Hartwick College
(NY)
Here are two examples of "five star" ratings learning modules
from the Business Discipline Community. The Learning Style Questionnairecan
be used in different disciplines, especially at the start of courses
or team-based exercises. The Case Interviewis an example of a
"commercial" site that was not designed for academia but that
can be used in many different business courses.
Learning Style Questionnaire
(http://business.merlot.org/artifact/ArtifactDetail.po?oid=3000000000000046826)
assesses student learning styles, has wide applicability, and is simple
and easy to use. After taking the online survey, students receive instant
results in the form of a profile of their dominant learning styles.
The results page has links to the author's website, which provides additional
information on learning styles. This can be an excellent tool for instructors/classes
at the start of their course, especially if they are employing teams
or student-learning groups.
The Case Interview
(http://business.merlot.org/artifact/ArtifactDetail.po?oid=1400000000000008344)
is part of a recruiting website designed by the Boston Consulting Group,
an international strategy and management consulting firm. The student
is introduced to the Case Interview approach of management consulting
through an example followed by an interactive case. In the interactive
case interview, students are presented with a series of web pages that
lead them to analyze a toy company's decision whether or not to begin
to sell toys online. This terrific site, both entertaining and informative,
poses a real-world situation for students to consider and does an excellent
job of walking students through the process to determine their recommendation
and solution. The interactive case presents the full process up front,
then challenges students to analyze information and think critically
through each step of the process.
History
Franklin Doeringer, Professor of History and East Asian Studies,
Lawrence University (WI)
Among the many outstanding digital materials dealing with history that
have emerged in recent years, a few are particularly noteworthy. The
Martha Ballard Case Study: A Midwife's Tale (http://www.DoHistory.com/),
which focuses on a reputed rape case in 18th century New England, draws
students into the problems of document analysis (and early American
views of women) by asking them to decide whether or not a crime occurred
on the basis of written records from the period.
Virtual Edo (http://www.us-japan.org/edomatsu/)
takes another approach, using 18th century woodblock prints to lead
students on a visual tour of the Japanese metropolis Edo (now Tokyo)
and present them with a detailed portrait of urban life in what was
then the world's largest city.
And the French website Napoleon (http://www.napoleon.org/home_fr.html)
offers students and faculty a rich archive of exhibits, documents, interviews,
and a searchable database on the Napoleonic era as well as its famous
namesake-all accessible in a variety of languages.
Information
Technology
Gerald Isaacs, Professor of Computer Science, Carroll College
(WI)
Mulder's Stylesheets (authored by Steve Mulder) is a tutorial
for the sub-discipline of web programming on cascading style sheets
(http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/authoring/stylesheets/tutorials/tutorial1.html).
As a tutorial originally written for the web, it has a large number
of internal and external links that allow visitors to learn at their
own pace. It has proven effective in encouraging student learning, without
the wiz bang of multimedia sites.
Physics
Peter Sheldon, Assistant Professor of Physics, Randolph-Macon
Woman's College (VA)
Out of 1,400 submitted items, the panel has selected the best candidates
for immediate review and has posted 30 reviews on the MERLOT website.
We are finding interactive items that clearly show multiple concepts
in a given sub-field in physics among the most useful. The most flexible
of these are the Physlets, an applet that can either be used as is or
scripted within a web page by a faculty member to do something particular
or different than the original author intended, thus serving not only
as an interactive exercise for students but also enabling revisions
by individual faculty members. Wolfgang Christian's (Davidson College)
Optics Workbench is a great example (In MERLOT: http://physics.merlot.org/artifact/ArtifactDetail.po?oid=3000000000000448102).
Other individuals may incorporate this Physlet into their own web page,
so that they do not have to rely on the David-son server. The Physlet
appears as an empty screen, with buttons for adding lenses, mirrors,
apertures, and light sources. Students can be instructed to build a
certain device, or can just spend time dropping items in to see how
they interact with each other. Rather than starting with the blank screen,
an instructor can easily script the Physlet to appear with equipment
already in place (e.g., to have all the elements of a telescope) and
then can require the student to manipulate items to change (for example)
the focus. There is an extensive collection of Physlets at the Davidson
site and at other sites across the country.
Independent
The Council of Independent Colleges
One Dupont Circle NW, Suite 320 • Washington, DC 20036
tel: (202) 466-7230 • Fax: (202) 466-7238 • e-mail: cic@cic.nche.edu
• www.cic.edu
Last updated: November 26, 2001
Copyright © 2001 The Council of Independent Colleges
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