I'll Have the Merlot!

I prefer pinot noir, but I digress! I spent three hours today navigating through the merlot.com website learning about their Merlot II platform. The time flew by. MERLOT is the acronym for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching.  I have to say I was impressed.  I like this site more than I did the OER website yesterday.  The OER site is prettier, but Merlot II is cleaner, less cluttered and speaks to the minimalist in me.  The homepage is intuitive and easy to navigate.  The short headings summarize effectively what each section offers.  I had no problems moving around and finding information.  

                                                                     Source: Merlot homepage

Merlot offers FREE membership and FREE access to a vast library of over 40,000 peer-reviewed learning resources.  What I found of exceptional value was that these resources were not only from American educators but international educators as well.  That level of inclusiveness was very attractive. I could create an e-portfolio in the Content Builder or find virtual speakers for subjects where expertise may be locally unavailable using the Virtual Speakers Bureau.  I liked that the Personal Collection tool enabled me to truly personalize learning through the collection of learning resources of my choice including MOOCs.  Merlot Voices perhaps most closely aligns with what we are doing in EME6414.  Using this platform, users can collaborate with other learners, discuss subjects in threads, post pictures or videos, use IM, share documents and blog.  That's what we've been doing during these past five weeks.  

Source: https://blog.merlot.org/category/open-education-resource-oer/

I found a 2013 blog by the Executive Director of Merlot discussing open source learning and documents titled MOOCs, MERLOT, and Open Educational Services: A Message from the MERLOT Executive Director.  I invite you to read it. The graphic above is from that blog.  I found that much of what we've talked about open source resources are in this blog including intellectual property concerns.  

                                                            Source: Merlot's Professional Development Portal 

I spent most of my discovery time in the professional development section. Merlot promises to make these types of opportunities possible. For example, let's look at some professional development instructional objectives through a partnership with The California State University:  (Merlot has many significant partnerships and these are listed in the Partners section of the site.)

 Source: Merlot's Professional Development Portal 

I looked through available MOOCS, new publications, training opportunities and information on intellectual property rights.  There were many resources from which to choose.  I could even watch the Twitter feed for discussions between members. 

 

 Source: Merlot's Professional Development Portal 

Merlot allows ratings. We've discussed the efficacy of rating systems in our course discussions.  I use ratings all the time, and I give Merlot II  five stars for its attractive appearance, ease of use, diversity of resources, its global appeal, and my favorite rating criteria - it's FREE!!! Try it now and let me know what you think.