MERLOT Classics Series

MERLOT and Elluminate are coordinating a MERLOT Series on Steve Hargadon’s Future of Education site: http://www.FutureofEducation.com. The series will feature MERLOT Classic Award winners from the 2008 and 2009 MERLOT International Conferences. The authors of these exemplary materials will describe their sites and the rationale for developing the site. The event will be co-hosted by Cathy Swift (MERLOT Director of Academic Partner Services) and Steve Hargadon (Elluminate Social Learning Consultant). The webinars are live and interactive, and typically are one hour long--allowing for a live Q&A after the presentation. All of these will be at 8 PM Eastern/ 7 PM Central/ 6 PM Mountain/ 5 PM Pacific.

Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page.

Wednesday, March 31st

Connecting Concepts – Biology Classics Award

Students play the role of predators on moths on a tree trunk. Then, they play the role of biologist, analyzing the changing gene frequencies of the moth population and determining if the population evolved over three generations. Students will: 1) collect data by “eating” moths; 2) calculate gene frequencies for each phenotype over three generations; 3) interpret graphs of data their data to determine if microevolution occurred; and 4) explain how selection acts on populations.

Jan Cheetham is an instructional designer, project manager, and technology consultant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She collaborates with faculty to create online courses, learning objects, and games and simulations for learning. Her educational background is in the life sciences, and she has extensive experience working as an instructor and administrator to enhance undergraduate biology education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her current area of interest is helping students acquire data literacies; that is, skills for using and deriving meaning from the vast amounts of biological data and data visualizations available through genomics and other biological databases