MERLOT Material Review

          The material that I am reviewing from MERLOT is a StAIR project entitled the “Value of Money” by Lisa Farrell (http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=573988).  This project presents the significant concepts of coin values and is targeted for lower elementary students.  The learning objectives are identified at the start of the project and reviewed at the end.  The objectives are learning about coin values, practicing adding coins together, and equivalent sets of coins.  The tutorial starts by telling the user the names of the four main types of coins and their respective values.  Thus, it starts with an explanation.  Next, there is a quiz that tests students on what they just learned.  This practice provides feedback to the user by letting him/her know if they got the question correct or incorrect.  If the user gets the question incorrect, it takes them back to the question to try again. 

      Next, the user is directed to a website to practice counting sets of coins.  The coins are mixed sets that are organized by value.  This is a large leap from the previous task and one that most first graders would find very challenging since they have to change the quantity they count by.  On this website, the user has to type in the answer.  If the user gets the question incorrect, a box appears to let them know that the correct answer is more than or less than their response. 

Finally, the user is directed to another website to take a quiz on equivalent sets of coins.  The most difficult aspect of this task for students would be to keep track of the values presented in the question as well as each answer choice. If the user gets the question correct a pop-up box appears to let them know.  If the user gets the question incorrect, they are given the correct answer with the option to see an explanation. Again, this task would be challenging for most first graders. 

There does not seem to provide enough scaffolding for the student to be successful in these last two tasks, unless they have been previously introduced to the concept and are using this module to practice their skills.  In which case, the first half of the module would be much too easy for the students.  Therefore, as a teacher, I would find this material difficult to integrate into my lessons on coins.

      In terms of ease of use, the interface does attempt to be consistent throughout with arrow buttons being used to navigate to the next slide.  Users are not able to go backwards in the presentation except at the end of the introduction to the different types of coins.  Since there is only a “one way” navigation it is less likely that the user would get lost in the material.  Most lower elementary students would also be able to do this quite independently.  At the top of each slide is a speaker button for the person to click on to hear the text read aloud. 

When the user is directed to the practice websites, the slide reminds them to click the red “X” at the top of the screen in order to return to the slideshow.  When navigating from slide to slide, there are sound effects.  When students get questions right or wrong there are sound effects as well.  As an adult, I found this kind of annoying, however, younger students might enjoy these sounds.  The students would also like the practice websites as they have vibrant colors and sound effects.

Overall, I probably would not use this project in my classroom because it does not provide the proper amount of scaffolding for students to be successful.  The students will either find it way to easy in the beginning and get disinterested or they will find it way too difficult and will get frustrated.