MERLOT Award Winners - 2009

The MERLOT Awards program recognizes and promotes outstanding online resources designed to enhance teaching and learning and to honor the authors and developers of these resources for their contributions to the academic community.

Each of the MERLOT Editorial Boards selects an outstanding resource from its discipline to receive the MERLOT Classics award.  The winners of the 2009 awards were honored with a ceremony at the 9th Annual MERLOT International Conference, held August 13th - 16th in San Jose, Califnornia. 

Biology

The Biology Project
Bill Grimes, Rick Hallick, and Ken Williams - University of Arizona
The Biology Project takes the novel approach of first asking the students questions - if the student’s answer to a question is incorrect the student then gets a tutorial that uses text and graphics to explain the concept that was being assessed. The eight modules at this site cover a range of important biological subjects with good assessment questions and excellent tutorials.

Business

Introduction to Marketing Unit for Principles of Marketing
M. Louise Ripley - York University
This is the first of eleven modules created to support a Principles of Marketing course.  This is one of the most thorough modules, addressing the essential terminology and concepts without overwhelming introductory-level students.  The module consists of learning activities, examples, interactive assignments for students, theoretical foundations, and references supporting content in the course discussion. 

Criminal Justice

Victims Virtual Walkthrough
Criminal Justice System - U.K.
This site provides an interactive virtual tour of the criminal justice system of England and Wales as it relates to being a victim of crime. This site presents visitors with a wide range of subjects that will offer a comprehensive understanding of the criminal justice system in England and Wales.  Students will enjoy the inter-activeness of the site and will also learn how another criminal justice system operates. 

Faculty Development

Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling
Bernard R. Robin - University of Houston |              
Educators at all levels can use Digital Storytelling in many ways, from introducing new material to helping students learn to conduct research, synthesize large amounts of content and gain expertise in the use of digital communication and authoring tools. It also can help students organize these ideas as they learn to create stories for an audience and present their ideas and knowledge in an individual and meaningful way.

Fire Safety

Half Hour to Tragedy
U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
This animated case study material is extremely effective and very professionally produced. This material gets the point across to everyone about how to handle HazMat emergencies, in particular, propane. Visual effects dramatically demonstrate consequences of the errors in decision-making and, as such, enhance student retention by making the material extremely relevant.

Health Sciences

Tox Town
National Library of Medicine/National Institute of Health
This interactive learning resource provides an introduction to chemicals and environmental health risks that we face in our everyday lives.  It includes a variety of neighborhoods that range from the city to rural areas.  It also includes the US-Mexico border and is available in both English and Spanish.  It includes teaching resources such as classroom activities, interactive resources, and careers

History

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution
Jack Censer and Lynn Hunt - University of California, Los Angeles
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution offers an excellent opportunity to delve into the details of the French Revolution using a wide variety of primary source materials, which includes 338 texts, 245 images, and a number of maps and songs. The site was many years in the making, and was the product of work by several leading historians of the French Revolution.

Library and Information Services

Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals
Eli Moody - Vanderbilt University
Addressing the question, what is the difference between popular and scholarly journals, this video presentation succinctly provides an answer.  Employing simple graphics and color images to explain the concepts of peer review and trade publications, criteria and visual cues are provided to assist neophytes in distinguishing between scholarly and popular journals. 

Mathematics

Flash Mathlets
Barbara Kaskosz - University of Rhode Island
These applets allow students to explore and investigate various topics in college math with an emphasis on Calculus topics that involve graphing and plotting.  The activities include parametric curves and surfaces that can be defined in the main coordinate systems: rectangular, polar, cylindrical and spherical. The authors also provide tutorials for developers who would like to create their own applets.

Music

International Music Score Library Project
Petrucci Music Library |     
IMSLP attempts to create a virtual library containing all public domain musical scores, as well as scores from composers who are willing to share their music with the world without charge. IMSLP also encourages the exchange of musical ideas, both in the form of musical works, and in the analysis of existing ones.

Physics

Assessing-to-Learn Physics
Physics Education Research Group - University of North Carolina at Greensboro
This is a very extensive database of Peer-Instruction questions, organized by topic and level. The questions in the database include both the answers and a description of the physics concepts being assessed. The web site also contains help for instructors in using these questions for formative assessment, to encourage discussion, and to effectively promote student learning.

Teacher Education

The Jing Project
Techsmith
Jing is a free, easy to use screen capture tool that allows for screen captures and screen casts.  Jing, through Screencast, provides free storage space for users, but you can pay for more space or save your material to your own site.  Jing is downloadable and available for immediate use on your desktop.  If you save a screencast, a URL is generated which you can embed wherever you’d like.

World Languages

Texas Language Technology Center
Carl Blyth and Karen Kelton - University of Texas
The Texas Language Technology Center is a model for innovation in technology-enhanced learning materials to teach languages. Many of its projects have won  prestigious awards already and several have received five-star peer reviews in MERLOT, such as Tex’s French Grammar, Le Francais interactif, Ta Falado and Spanish Proficiency Exercises.