The online website MERLOT offers a great deal of food for the teaching (and learning) soul. MERLOT, which stands for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, is a user-centered, peer-reviewed website that has was created to share academic technological needs. What started as a small consortium has grown into one of the best online resources for educators.
Different areas are showcased on the MERLOT website. The Pedagogy Portal and its categories of learners and learning, course design, teaching strategies, teaching challenges, and assessments all contain case studies, research, and tips for becoming a better instructor. Each category offers a great deal of information. The Online/Hybrid Courses section of the Teaching Strategies strand, for example, has links to sites that discuss how to structure effective online discussions, chats, and general tips for success.
MERLOT’s Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT) advertises that it’s had over 90,000 visits in the past year. The journal, which is a free publication, is a great resource, especially for those teaching online. Research papers, case studies, and position papers are part of the quarterly journal in addition to the themed articles. The deadline for the Fall 2010 edition is in May, so if you’re interested in sharing your experiences or research, check out JOLT.
While the showcased areas and journal provide a plethora of information for higher education instructors, the main attraction of MERLOT is the depth of information in the discipline communities. Each discipline community has links that take the educator to a site showing tutorials, collections, reference material, tips for online teaching of the subject, and more. Some of the linked websites have been reviewed by peers. Having many (455 in the English community) available links in one area can be a great timesaver when looking for new ideas.
It will take you more than one sitting to get through all of the material in MERLOT, but it is time well spent.
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