Teaching Where Text and Object Meet: The Perils and Promises of MOO

MOO is easier to show than describe -- it's a place, a language, a community, an experience, and eventually a way of thinking. It has that of "potential" about it. It is text-based and object-oriented (a kind of programming language), and shares the various potentials of other virtual reality environments to help us reconfigure education: 24-hour access to resources, students becoming authors, democratization of learning, expansion of the classroom, ease in exploration of identities, &etc. MOO also has some serious downsides, however. The environment is programatically complex and requires some fairly intensive technical upkeep, and instructors must feel comfortable with the technology to keep a step ahead of their generally more savvy students. The strengths of text-only are also its weaknesses, and as the boundaries of "work" and "play" are blurred, interpersonal interactions can become complicated.

The questions, then, become: how do we shape a pedagogy that works best in MOO? How do we determine whether MOO is best suited for the goals of our teaching?

Susan Garfinkel    

Getting Started

There are many getting started guides around the Web. We've provided a quick start crib sheet for you. http://lucien.sims.berkeley.edu/MOO/quick-reference.txt

Educational MOOs -- Web Sites

MOO communities

note: links in this section are to MOO welcome screens via telnet, unless otherwise indicated.

Online Teaching