This particular class (a GE music course) make extensive use of collaborative learning methods, primarily by putting students into small work groups to complete projects which then became the basis of assignments completed by the entire classs.

Each group had its own Manila site which they used for discussing and preparing group assignments. They also used set up threads and stories to help coordinate their schedules for completing assignments.

When the groups finished their individual work one member from each group posted their assignment on another central class Manila site that was accessible to all students in the class. This posting consisted of a number of questions on topics that the individual groups had focused on. The class then used the same discussion threads to answer the questions. Then the original groups returned to comment on the answers posted by the class and, finally, I posted some wrap-up commentary on each thread.

I ran my Frontier/Manila server on an old Mac OS 9 server that was also running WebStar, Filemaker, and a few other things. You can also run it under Windows or Mac OS X if you want a more powerful server - only necessary if you plan to support a very large number of sites and users.

We did not find that the slightly better Windows client support you mentioned (easy formatting of text) made a significant difference. Most students who needed to post a URL simply typed in the full URL; Manila automatically turns it into a link. Others quickly figured out how to use the simple Manila shortcuts feature.

Another note: In each group there will typically be a mix of students and you are likely to find that at least on is web-savvy enough to do any sophisticated html coding that the group may need and/or help out the other students.

Dan Mitchell