MERLOT 101 Online 2009: Week One Introductions and Post- Workshop discussion

[Laura Franklin]

Welcome all, near and far, to a special three-week version of MERLOT101 beginning March 2009. This online course will get newcomers started with MERLOT, help you discover its many features and show you how to build a Personal Collection of learning materials for teaching and learning.

Before entering the course content, let us begin by building our community.Please introduce yourself to the group. Tell us the discipline area that interests you, what kinds of learning materials you seek and ask any questions that you may have about MERLOT.

For participants with some background in MERLOT, welcome as well. Your objective for the workshop is to build a Personal Collection and to share it with our network. If all goes well, this course will have an international audience, so the potential to meet new colleagues and to learn about new resources should be greater than usual.

Please remember that throughout the course of these three weeks you will have access not only to your MERLOT team, but also the TLTG team and the MERLOT Africa Network.
Interaction with people who can help us get what we need is the heart and soul of MERLOT. So, let's get acquainted with each other and the course.

[Sstephany Head]

Hello - I thought I had already submitted my responses for this workshop, but perhaps I submitted it in the wrong place. Anyway, my name is Stephany Head, and I am an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland University College in the Information Systems Management (IFSM) Division. I have spent some time touring the various components of Merlot and find it extremely impressive. However, currently I teach a course that is pretty structured. If I am asked to teach another graduate course, Merlot would be an excellent resource.

[Laura Franklin]

Here is your earlier message. I knew we'd talked yesterday!! See the pages below.


Hello, my name is Stephany, and I am an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland University College. I am also President of OpRisk Associates, LLC. As President of OpRisk Associates, LLC, I have trained in South Africa and on-line in the areas of operational risk, performance, and business continuity management.

[TOURE MADINA]

LAURA, désolée mais je n'arrive pas à joindre l'atelier 2

[Laura Franklin]

Madina,

Je vous ai envoye un mel. Essayez de nous joindre a 4 heures EDT. Desolee de la confusion!

[Mahmut Tamersoy]

Sorry for missing the first week. My name is Mahmut Tamersoy and I am participating from Izmir, Turkey. I am an adjunct associate professor at University of Maryland University College Europe in Computer Studies. I am here to discover the opportunities of MERLOT as I have no previous experience with it.

[Laura Franklin]

Hi Mahmut,


Welcome!

Please join us today at 4PM EDT for the second workshop. You should have received the course link when you registered at the TLT web site. Today we will discuss peer review. Our IT community is most appropriate to your instructional needs. We are here to help.

[Zdenka Jarvis]

Hello,
I'm sorry to join so late. I am an adjunct professor for University of Maryland University College. So far I mainly taught f2f classes in science. Well, I have moved to Arizona recently and in order to keep teaching for UMUC I have to do it through DE. However, I am as fresh in this field as I can be so this is an excellent opportunity for me to gain knowledge from much more experienced colleagues. I have already looked at some of the web pages (especially the biology portal) which are great sources.
zdenka

[Cathy Swift]

Hi, Zdenka: This will be covered in next week's sessions, but you will find the Pedagogy Portal of help in your current situation. It's designed to help you through the five steps of teaching: Research Learning, Instructional Design, Teaching Strategies, Teaching Challenges, and Assessment: http://pedagogy.merlot.org/ There are a number of very good resources on Online Teaching, very helpful to those who are new to it: http://pedagogy.merlot.org/TSOnlineHybridCourses.html

[Kimberly G White]

Hello All
My name is Kim and I am an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Jackson State Community College in West TN. I teach math classes both on ground and on-line.

.I am always looking for resources to use in my web sections and am especially interested in math applications geared towards pre-calculus or college algebra.

[Laura Franklin]

Hey Kim,

Our Math portal is the best place to begin: http://mathematics.merlot.org

This morning Ray was talking about the SERC pedagogy collections for Sciences. One also exists for Math! Just go to the portal and click on the first column. You'll find the Math pedagogy links. There is a lot in MERLOT for pre-calculus and college algebra.

[Aisha Sherbiny]

Hello,
My name is Aisha Sherbiny and I reside in Arlington, Virigina. I have been using Merlot for couple of years when Dr. Laura Franklin introduced it to the group during 2007 Summer Startalk workshop. I Teach ESL and I'm searching the internet for resources to build my Merlot collection. Very soon I'll be going overseas to teach English as a second language and I feel strong and prepared due to the useful learning materials that I can find on Merlot.
Technology make learning more enjoyable!

[Aisha Sherbiny]

Dr. Franklin,
Could you inform me of the next session?
I'll be in Jordan, but I'd love to participate in your workshop.