MUDs and MOOs: How Students Benefit from MUDs in MOOs

MUDs and MOOs: Collaborative Narrative Play at Work in the Classroom

Challenges for Using MOOs: The Benefits of MUDs in MOOs

Many students have trouble learning to MOO because its interface is unfamiliar to them. Contributing to this problem, the designed interface metaphors often exist mainly in plans and are not apparent in usage. The popular press hides this problem by loudly declaring that students today are more computer literate than ever before. In actuality, students often know how programs and computers work, but they do not know the reasons or underlying structures upon which the operations function. While students may be intimately familiar with any number of programs, most have difficulty when abstracting to new programs that do not have readily analogous commands and interfaces. Bradley Dilger argues that "the application to learning needs to extend beyond learning the skills needed to operate a certain program in a specific, localized spatial environment. Instead, generalization of knowledge as methodology should be encouraged and actively facilitated by both teachers and designers of software applications and computer-human interfaces" (section 3). In short, there is a discrepancy between the individual skills students learn and broad skills needed to move from one interface to another. Teaching technology within the humanities, like having students writing in the MOO environment, should seek to correct this discrepancy by providing a framework which requires abstraction. Unfortunately, the initial introduction to technological forms like the MOO is often very difficult.

Instructors can smooth the way by using schemas and conceptual frameworks to give students models for approaching technology. These models can then be adapted or discarded with use, but they provide a method that encourages playful experimentation. To acclimate our students to the MOO, we tried a variety of approaches. One approach was to show students the MOOseum, which houses examples of previous MOO student work. The MOOseum features a plastic surgery office, a model of revolution-era France, a model of the American Western Frontier, and others. We also asked students to use the MOO as a chat space, and then to navigate the MOO as a connected group of rooms. These types of introductions paired with the explanation of the MOO as a free and open space within the bounds of certain rules, still left the majority of students confused. Because the MOO presents a more playful alternative to traditional pedagogy, the students were intrigued with the MOO, and eventually grew comfortable with it.

The greatest impediment for students was the fact that our MOO is completely open in terms of options and themes. This freedom made the initial familiarization with the MOO more difficult. Previous work on design principles provides insight into the dilemma that students face when learning the MOO. In his book, The Design of Everyday Things, computer science and pyschology scholar Donald Norman notes several principles of good design, including having, "A good conceptual model. The designer provides a good conceptual model for the user, with consistency in the presentation of operations and results and a coherent, consistent system image" (53). Like Norman, designer and critic Jessica Helfand writes that design principles do not dictate the type of choice normally associated with new media. In fact, she writes that "'choice' may not, in the end, be a necessary incentive to viewer interest" (123). Both Norman and Helfand suggest that clear design determines the perceived scope of usage. Most MOOs avoid such clear design goals to prevent the limited scope that often accompanies such basic models; they do so by constructing worlds where the rules, scenes, and structures are malleable. In teaching, we realized that though we appreciate the flexibility of open design, we were using too much class time on repetitive explanations of the MOO and its possibilities. For this, we sought for a simpler introduction which could more rapidly answer student questions by having them learn through practice in the MOO.

Part of our goal of having the students learn by practice was driven by our desire to have the students learn the MOO not as a 'normal' classroom exercise, but as one in which play was involved. Sherry Turkle notes in The Second Self that teaching children video games seems foolish because "Children learn these games although they come with virtually no instructions. Children dive into their exploration. They watch others play, they figure it out for themselves" (98). Through the MOO, we sought to introduce elements of play--trying, making mistakes, and learning from those mistakes--and make use of the playful nature of collaborative, creative work. Doing so draws on student gaming experiences to create a conceptual framework for classroom production.

We believed that a simpler introduction to the MOO would aid both our students and other teachers unfamiliar with the MOO. This introduction would show the MOO not as a completely new entity, but as one with a history of development and one with initially commercial and entertainment oriented goals. Early MUDS appeared likely to provide useful conceptual models. With the enormous popularity of video games and visual MUDs (also known as massively multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPGs) like EverQuest and Asheron's Call, MUDs were a familiar schema that offered an instant introduction to MOOs. The MUD schema also reintroduced play to the MOO, but within a readily accessible framework.

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