MOO Usage
MOOs have been used in English classes for many years. The most prevalent reason that teachers use MOOs in English classes seems to be to open up discussions about identity, sex, and race through the constructed reality of the MOO. These discussions are easy to create because, while many students take race and gender to be exact and predetermined concepts, the artificiality of the MOO allows them to see how gender and identity are socially and linguistically constructed. For instance, many teachers use the MOO as a chat space. They have students log in, change their names and genders and set their descriptions. Then, they have students discuss the homework reading or a class topic and they see how students react differently in the MOO as based on the perceived changes in how and with whom the class is discussing the topic. Some students are much quieter in the MOO than in a real-life classroom, the majority are much more talkative and sometimes aggressive (which is why it's always a good idea to have students read a MOO manners article before the first MOO class day). By using the MOO this way, students can see how language is performative and how it affects discussion.
In my classes, I use the MOO to show students how computer languages operate in conjunction with human languages. We begin our work in the MOO with in-MOO class discussion, where the students change their descriptions, set their genders, and change their names. In the class immediately after that, we begin to build. In building, my students set the messages on their objects and program verbs.
MOO stands for MUD (Multi-user domain, including chat rooms, massively multiplayer video games, and so on) Object Oriented, and the object oriented part refers to how the programming language operates. Object oriented means that the language refers to objects (nouns) and uses commands (verbs) to access and manipulate those objects. This is true in object oriented computer languages like Perl, but MOOs especially foreground the connection. In my classes on MOOs, I try to get my students to see how language operates on multiple levels, including the oral and written language operation that they are familiar with, and the language as creating meaning level which they deal with on a regular basis without often acknowledging. I also try to make the language connections so that areas like grammar become meaningful rather than seeming arbitrary. In setting messages on MOO objects, if a student chooses to write a generic message for a piece of furniture that he or she has created as a couch, then that message will fail unless the student uses the proper pronoun substitution and grammar. For instance, if a student tries to set the message for "stand" on a couch as only:
You stand up from the couch.
Then, the person who stand up from the couch will see that message, as will everyone else in the room, which will be absurd since those people most likely won't also be standing up from the couch. This is why the MOO offers multiple messages for all objects. A typical couch has the messages:
@on [on]
@sitting [sitting]
@sit [%Nd %n:(sits) %tx{on} %td]
@stand [%Dd %d:(stands) up from %td.]
@integrate_empty [%Ti %t:(is) here.]
@integrate_sitters [ %Ni %n:(is) %tx{sitting} %tx{on} %to.]
@empty [ ]
@fall [%Dd %d:(falls) off %td.]
@shove [%Nd %n:(shoves) %dd off %td!]
@squeeze [%Dd %d:(is) squeezed off %td.]
@nosqueeze [There's no room %tx{on} %td.]
@also_shove [%Nd %n:(takes) %dd with %no.]
@desc_along_with [along with]
@already_sitting [You are already %tx{sitting} %tx{on} %td.]
@next_to [ %d'(beside/between) %dd]
@move_next_to [%Nd %n:(crawls) over %id on %np way to %dd.]
While most students won't use all of these messages, they quickly realize that setting some of the messages is necessary in order for their object to really work.
Within the discussion of how language constructs objects, and in making connections between computer languages and human languages, I also try to stress that all language evolves. Computer languages go from Perl 4.0 to 4.2 to 5.0 and so on, C changes from C to C++. The changes can be minor, but they are more often akin to changes from Old to Middle to modern day English. I stress that languages all evolve because many students construct divisions between human languages (which they often class as chaotic or incomprehensible) and computer languages (which they view as completely logical). By trying to bridge these divisions, students can re-examine human languages, learn how to abstract skills from different areas, they can see how language connects to multiple aspects of meaning and meaning-making, and they can see how language constructs and constrains meaning in non-arbitrary, but evolving ways. This opens MOO usage into changing word meaning (to make love in Shakespearan writing means to say loving things instead of the current sexual reference) and to larger discussions of how language operates and evolves.