MERLOT Award Winners - 2005

MERLOT is pleased to present the 2005 winners of its Editors' Choice and Classics awards. Winners were honored at the 2005 MERLOT International Conference held July 25-28 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Biology-Classics

Water on the Web
Bruce Munson, Richard Axler, Cynthia Hagley, George Host, Glenn Merrick, Carl Richards, Scott Robertson, Elaine Ruzycki, and Norm Will, University of Minnesota
This site provides an extensive list of materials, lessons, and data sets for examining a wide range of limnological questions. The student section offers handouts and directions for investigating freshwater systems. Real time data on various water quality parameters from Minnesota lakes is a central feature of the site. Data can be viewed as HTML or Excel files.

Business-Classics

Design Your Own Movie Theater
Tom Novak, Vanderbilt University
Set in the context of movie theatre preferences, this exercise asks students to order, from most preferred to least preferred, eighteen hypothetical theater configurations which vary in terms of five attributes: ticket price, line-of-sight, seat comfort, audio/visual equipment, and concessions. The resulting output lists the relative importance of each attribute to the student, and provides part worth information for each level of the five attributes.

Chemistry-Classics

WebElements
Mark Winter, University of Sheffield
This site provides a wealth of data such as element history, uses, geology, biology, reactions of the element, compounds, bond enthalpies, radii in compounds, lattice energies, reduction potentials, electronic configurations, ionization energies, electron affinities, electronegativities, effective nuclear charge, electron binding energies, atom radii, valence shell radii, bulk properties, thermal properties, thermodynamic properties, crystal structure, NMR, naturally occurring isotopes, radioisotopes, and even a compound index!

Engineering-Classics

Thermal Power Plant Micro Module
Jim Bugg, University of Saskatchewan
This learning object discusses and provides animations of the basic processes and components in a thermal electric power plant. It is comprised of two main parts: 1) Rankine cycle descriptions and animations, and 2) a Rankine cycle calculator. Cycle descriptions and animations include the Carnot cycle, the basic Rankine cycle, and advanced Rankine cycles with reheating and feedwater heating.

Health Sciences-Classics

Native American Elders Health Care Series
Gloria Craig, Kay Foland, and Tish Smyer, South Dakota State University
This is an online project designed for nurses who work with elderly Native Americans, a population that experiences a high rate of preventable illnesses. A major emphasis is on learning to incorporate preventive healthcare and chronic disease management sensitive to language barriers, economic factors, and health beliefs.

History-Classics

Valley of the Shadow
Edward L. Ayers and Andrew Torget, University of Virginia
This interactive site has students browse reproductions of records and documents pertaining to two similar towns in Pennsylvania and Virginia just before and during the Civil War to determine for themselves how the issues of the day and events of everyday life affected ordinary people.

Information Technology-Classics

Boolean Operators
Marybeth McCartin, New York University
This interactive site demonstrates Boolean operators through the use of a specific research question. The process is divided into four steps: Choose keywords, Choose Boolean operators, Execute search, and Review results (apply skills to periodical abstracts), and Nesting and Truncation. Each step includes a brief explanation, an example, and a "Now you try it" section with immediate feedback.

Math-Classics and Editors' Choice

Mathematical Visualization Toolkit
James H. Curry and Anne Dougherty, University of Colorado at Boulder
This site consists of a collection of plotting and solving applets featuring a uniform user interface and has value and effectiveness as a set of teaching/learning tools. Visualizing mathematical concepts, especially in three-dimensional space, can be quite difficult for students.

Music-Classics and Editors' Choice

Music Acoustics
Joe Wolfe, University of New South Wales
This site provides detailed text, illustrations, and applets that demonstrate the acoustics of many western wind and string instruments as well as the human voice. The site also covers some world instruments. There are several sub-sections of the site, each devoted to the acoustics of a different instrument.

Physics-Classics

Hyperphysics
Rod Nave, Georgia State University
This site was honored because of its comprehensive coverage of most of physics, the creative use of multimedia and linking, and the impact it has had on students worldwide. Online tutorials cover a wide range of physics topics, including modern physics and astronomy. Material is organized through extensive concept maps.

Psychology-Classics

Epsych
Gary Bradshaw, Mississippi State University
This site provides a diverse collection of activities and demonstrations that serve to illustrate a variety of psychological concepts. The vast array of topics covered in ePsych ensures that almost any psychology instructor can find something of use in this dynamic site - and students are sure to enjoy it.

Statistics-Classics

StatCrunch
Webster West, University of South Carolina
This is a free web-based package that does a very complete range of statistical calculations designed to be user friendly. Formerly known as WebStat, it provides statistical calculation functions that would be done in most introductory statistics courses. Notable examples include being able to create histograms, pie charts, and boxplots, calculation of summary statistics and confidence intervals, and performing hypothesis tests.

Teacher Education-Classics

The Paper Project
Charles J. Kazilek, Gene Valentine, and Jennifer Tsukayama, Arizona State University
This site was recognized for its innovative and best practices approach to cross-curricular investigation, discovery, and reflection for K-university learners. Since 1998, the Paper Project has been exploring the structure and beauty of paper. The project chronicles handmade and mould made paper through images produced by scanning electron microscopy and a scanning-laser confocal microscope.

Teaching and Technology-Classics

Active Learning with PowerPoint
Paul Baepler and Bill Rozaitis, University of Minnesota
This module is an online tutorial that suggests ways faculty can use PowerPoint as a medium to support active learning. The tutorial includes sections on active lecturing, active learning strategies and their delivery via PowerPoint, creating and using effective handouts, using PowerPoint to play in-class games, and using PowerPoint for formative assessment.

World Languages-Classics and Editors' Choice

LangMedia Foreign Language Archive
Elizabeth Mazzocco and Amy Wordelman, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
LangMedia provides access to authentic materials that can be used in a wide variety of pedagogical settings. It features less commonly taught languages from Bangla to Wolof, as well as excellent materials in French, Spanish and other more commonly taught languages. It has a learner-centered design and appeals to a variety of learning styles.

For more information please contact Cathy Owens Swift at cswift@calstate.edu