June 20, 2003
For Immediate Release
To: News Directors and News Editors
From: Veronika Avery, Coordinator of Media Relations, 342-5444

Trevor Melder, a physics instructor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, has been named a Louisiana Board of Regent's MERLOT scholar. MERLOT-the Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Training-recognizes outstanding faculty who enhance their instruction with e-learning resources. Melder will serve as Louisiana's Higher Education representative in physics and will be working alongside instructors from through out the United States to further develop the e-learning curriculum.

MERLOT is a "shared content database" of modular materials designed to enhance e-learning. Instead of every professor at each university designing their own e-learning materials, they may now log on to MERLOT and find ready-made materials to incorporate into their lesson plans. They may also contribute on-line resources to the MERLOT database. MERLOT can be used in junior high and high school classes, as well. One of the goals of MERLOT is to have the available materials in use as far down as kindergarten.

Melder recently attended a MERLOT meeting in Baton Rouge. Associate Commissioner of Information & Learning Technology, Michael Abbiatti, described MERLOT as a "collabotetion" ­ part collaboration and part competition.

In August, Melder will be presenting a paper titled "Student Understanding of Vector Components" at the MERLOT International Conference in Vancouver.

For more information on MERLOT visit http://www.merlot.org.

A photo of Professor Melder can be obtained through ULM's Office of Public Affairs.

Find this and other ULM News at http://www.ulm.edu.