Introduction to MMC-CaMILE

CaMILE (Collaborative and Multimedia Interactive Learning Environment, http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/edtech/CaMILE.html) is a tool that we've used for over two years in a whole bunch of classes (800+ students served!). MMC-CaMILE (Mac-Mounted CaMILE, or alternatively, Mickey Mouse Club) is a new version of CaMILE with some spiffy new features and much more maintainable (read: If you complain about a feature or other, it might get changed)(read: Maintaing the original CaMILE Perl code is, uh, difficult.).

In MMC, use the username from the Roll and your password is your student number, without dashes or spaces, e.g., "345468907".

CaMILE is much like a newsgroup: A threaded discussion area. ("Threaded" means that one note comments on another, comments on another, and the line of comments from the original note is a "thread.") Some features of CaMILE that make it different:

• Notes never go away. For classroom discussions where I want you to do more than just say "Yeah, me too," persistent notes means that you can get back to them someday.

• Each note has its own URL. Why is that good? Because I can create one-click access from any note to any other note.

• You get prompted to identify the kind of note that you're creating, and then are offered suggestions for what's good to say in a note of that type. These can help you figure out what to say, and can help others figure out what you're trying to say.

• MMC-CaMILE offers a couple of features that CaMILE did not. It will let you know about new notes posted since your last visit. It will also let you know about new notes since your last visit that are direct comments to things you posted. There is also an ability to edit your notes.

MMC-CaMILE was created Winter '97 by Jason M. Podhorez (gt4200b@prism.gatech.edu) based on some code that I gave him, so he gets kudos for building the system, but I get the complaints for design. It has been updated since Spring '97. Feel free to suggest features/changes.