My first semester teaching first-year composition at the University of Texas at Austin, I took my class to a swinging California party house. My students played with all manner of strange contraptions and talked to many interesting strangers. Some swam in the pool while others dunked classmates in the hot tub and drank margaritas. Some were sexually propositioned. A few made complete nuisances of themselves. All enjoyed themselves thoroughly. You would think after such a field trip that I should have been arrested for contributing to the deliquency of minors, or at least reprimanded by my department head.
But, lucky for me, my students' adventures took places in the active, text-based virtual community known as LambdaMOO, not in the flesh. Their bodies were all safely seated in one of the computer classrooms maintained by UT's Computer Writing and Research Laboratory (CWRL). We visited LambdaMOO as part of our research into definitional arguments about identity and community. Since that fall in 1997, I have returned to this and other virtual worlds with several other writing classes -- and not just for the margaritas. Like many writing teachers across the country, I have become excited by the educational potential of MOOs. Through this article, I hope to explain why MOOs -- even non-academic social and gaming MOOs -- are especially useful teaching tools for writing instructors. For instructors interested in using MOOs, but leery of make a big technological commitment, I will also offer three "case studies" of MOO assignments, complete with ready-to-use assignment sheets, that are relatively simple to put into action, even for those with no technical background.
First, a little history on MOOs themselves is in order. LambdaMOO is one of hundreds of text-based worlds known as MUDs, or Multi-User Domains or Multi-User Dungeons1. Technically, a MUD is a computer program that either resides on one server or is distributed across several, often at a university or high-tech research company, and that allows computer users from around the world to use their modems to dial in and communicate with each other in certain rule-bound ways while overseen by administrators known as "wizards." In practice, a MUD is an on-screen world where players/users define fantastic personas for themselves and interact in ways that are limited only by their imaginations and the particular parameters of the MUD. In the late 1970s, when the first MUDs appeared, most were fantasy gaming environments in which players did battle with each other and set off on quests2. MOOs are MUDs that use an object-oriented programming language that allows even non-programmers to"create" objects using some simple commands (MOO stands for "MUD-Object Oriented"). This lets players "build" things that they want in the MOO. The basic framework of a MOO is created by the initial designers, but users make additions, build houses, and furnish them using commands. All of these "objects" appear as textual description whenever other players encounter them.
Since LambdaMOO (one of the first and now most popular MOOs) was established, MOOs have tended to be less "hack and slay" than the original MUDs. MOOs are generally social environments where people gather for interaction and entertainment. Increasingly, educators from many different disciplines have tapped into the teaching potential of MOO environments. Leading the charge was M.I.T.'s Media Lab, which established MediaMOO in the early 1990s as a meeting place for media scholars3. Soon afterwards, Diversity University became the first MOO designed specifically for classroom use. The DU MOO is a virtual campus in which different "buildings" are devoted to different academic areas, and students from around the world can attend classes in virtual classrooms.
Over the past few years, English teachers have staked a claim to these text-based worlds (who better to preside over a word-world, after all?). The Composition in Cyberspace Project is devoted to the study of using MOOs and other Internet resources to teach composition. Lingua MOO, established five years ago by Cynthia Haynes and Jan Rue Holmevik, is an academic MOO established through the University of Texas at Dallas's rhetoric program. Haynes and Holmevik have been especially active in setting up resources and developing tools for teachers interested in starting up a MOO of their own. In fact, one could ask for no better introduction to educational MOOs an the challenges of setting up and maintaining one than their book High Wired: On the Design, Use, and Theory of Educational MOOs, a collection of essays by educational MOO pioneers.
One of the difficulties involved in using MOOs in a classroom environment is access. Instructors and students need ready access to computers with sturdy Internet connections, and they also need certain software to make their MOO experiences enjoyable and intelligible. Software programs designed to help users navigate MOOs are called clients. There are many clients from which to choose and most are free for the downloading, but they are not commonly installed on university computer systems or bundled with other popular programs, so students must frequently seek these out on their own. MOOs are accessible via Telnet, the most basic client, and Telnet is installed on most university and personal computers; however, it was not designed with MOOing in mind, and gives MOO users a jumbled and frustrating MOO experience. Text streams by continuously in a single frame where text the user types is often interrupted by comments and actions from other players. This makes keeping track of discussions very difficult. It is preferable to select one of the following: for Macintosh users, MUDDweller, MacMOOse, or Rapscallion; for Windows users, TinkeriView, MudWin, or Pueblo; and for UNIX, TinyFugue. These programs perform many functions that make MOOing easier. Most importantly, they split the text into two screens: one where users type their input and one where the MOO action takes place. These clients also allow users to customize different aspects of the interface (things like font, font size, and background color) and save logs of their sessions to their hard drives or diskettes (an important feature for students conducting research in MOOs). Once a student has loaded a client onto his computer, all he needs to access almost any MOO is the domain name and port number. The domain name is the name of the server, or computer, where the MOO program resides, and the port number is a like a key giving a user access to a certain "door" on the server that leads into the MOO. LambdaMOO's domain name, for example, is lambda.moo.mud.org and the port number for LambdaMOO is 8888. There are several MUD/MOO sites on the World Wide Web that offer searchable indexes of MOOs and MUDs and give all the relevant information (a description of the environment, the domain name and port number of each MOO). One especially useful site is Mudconnect, which allows users to search for MOOs and MUDs in several different ways.
A newer option for MOOers, and one that students may prefer, are Web-based MOO clients. Students with basic computer literacy are generally comfortable with the World Wide Web and the look and feel of standard Web pages, so these clients can be a good choice. Web-based MOO-clients offer several important benefits: they are platform-independent (that is, anyone with Web access can use them); they are less foreign to the first-time user that the clients previously discussed; and they can enrich the MOO experience by bringing in hypermedia features like graphics, audio, and video. Web-based MOO clients also make it possible for instructors to ensure some measure of consistency in the interface their students use. There are several Web-based MOO clients, including Sensemedia's WOO system (see their groundbreaking online environment The Sprawl, based on William Gibson's novel Neuromancer), BioGate (check out a BioGate interface at Diversity University), and enCore Xpress, develop by Haynes and Holmevik and used to power Lingua MOO. These are all available for download free of charge (with some restrictions). These clients offer familiar features like clickable icons and frames, and also allow users to customize some aspects of the interface. To access a Web-based MOO, users still need the domain name and port number, but they enter the information as a Web address. For example, one would access Lingua MOO by point one's browser to http://lingua.utdalls.edu:7000/. The domain name is lingua.utdallas.edu and the port number is 7000.
There are important drawbacks to Web-based clients. First, they can only be used to access MOOs that have a Web-based system installed. Older clients can access almost any MOO, but Web-based clients can only access MOOs that are set up for Web-based access. As of this writing (in 2000), the vast majority of MOOs are not set up for Web access. Another important drawback to Web-based MOOing is that the added multimedia content requires more bandwidth and slows down the speed of interaction between players. Since interaction between players is the main focus for most MOO users, this lag time can present a serious problem. To make using these clients practical, students must have high-speed Internet connections and fast computers. Even the fastest available modem may not make up for the time it takes for the screens to load and reload data. This sometimes makes them undesirable for students using a dial-up Internet service to MOO from home. Also, experienced MOO users who are already comfortable with an older client might not see the need for the added features offered by Web-based clients. One might argue that adding pictures and sound to a text-based interactive environment detracts from the quality of the interaction and changes the very nature of MOOing. This is partially true. In an important way, Web-based MOOs are no longer "word worlds." They are one step closer to the virtual reality realms envisioned by science fiction writers like Neal Stephenson and William Gibson4. This is neither good nor bad, of course, but it is important to consider the difference between strictly text-based environments and audio/video-enhanced environments when planning MOO assignments.
Most educators interested in MOOs, included Haynes and Holmevik, focus on using MOOs as a site for class discussions, scholarly gatherings, academic events, and students conferences, and treat their MOOs as virtual classrooms. They tend to spend a lot of time stressing the importance of online etiquette and suitable behavior. The utility of MOOs in distance education is undeniable, and good manners, in or out of a MOO, are always useful. However, my focus, and the focus of many of my colleagues at the CWRL, is somewhat different. Instead of moving our writing or literature class activities from the "real life" classroom to an on-screen educational MOO, we have students use MOOs themselves as research sites and media of expression and argumentation. A MOO, then, can be seen not just an online equivalent of a traditional academic setting, but as an exciting new world or challenging new expressive medium. For example, I steer my students clear of educational MOOs and ask them to conduct research on certain topics by participating in a social or gaming MOO. Free interchange with a wide variety of MOO players gives students a potent lesson in the power of written words -- a lesson that cannot be duplicated in a restrained, homogeneous academic setting. In fact, I have found no better way of explaining classical rhetorical concepts like ethos, pathos, and logos than by letting students define themselves textually and interact with other textually defined players (see Assignment One: How's Life in a MU*? for a more detailed discussion) in non-academic, relatively uncontrolled environments like LambdaMOO.
Certainly, there are some difficulties involved in asking students to participate in a non-academic MOO. There is a loss of control on the part of the instructor. It has been my experience that students initially test the limits of their discursive freedom in MOOs by behaving in ways they might feel uncomfortable with in a "real life" setting. They flirt with each other, talk provocatively, sometimes behave rudely, and sometimes even become belligerent. This can be a hair-raising experience for an instructor, who has to sit by and watch her class run wild online. However, I believe the lessons learned through this experience are well worth a temporary loss of control and decorum. Students quickly police their own actions for two main reasons. First, they realize they do not like being treated rudely by other MOO users, and that they do not like the MOO users who are rude and intrusive. They decide that they do not want to be seen by others as rude. They see that the only way other players have of knowing them is through their words, and they begin to be careful about how they present themselves. Second, experienced MOO users usually set good examples. Veterans of each MOO tend to be considerate, helpful, and polite to newcomers, and most have the respect of the other players. New MOOers (called "newbies") want and sometimes need the help of these players, and modify their behavior to get it. Another potential problem is that students may be offended or upset by something someone does on a MOO they are exploring. To some degree, this is unavoidable, but students can be prepared for the possibility. It is important to stress that MOO users can control their experiences online by using certain MOO commands (@gag, for example, will block the comments of a particularly offensive player), by leaving a room where they are being made uncomfortable, by appealing to MOO administrators for help, or by simply logging off the MOO.
My colleagues, Joanna Wolfe and David Barndollar, both assistant directors at the CWRL, take an entirely different approach to teaching with MOOs. They actually have their students construct arguments using MOO rooms and objects (see Assignment Two: Object-Oriented Arguing and Assignment Three: MOOing Through The Waste Land). Each student constructs a MOO space that, through its layout and contents, makes a literary or rhetorical claim. These MOO arguments are interactive, as students create objects and characters that visitors can manipulate or converse with. However, the focus of these assignments is not on discourse between players, but on creative, nonlinear argumentation.
When explaining our MOO assignments to others, my colleagues and I are often faced with with same question: "Why?" Why not just have students write traditional papers? Why spend so much time getting them familiar with the MOO commands? Wouldn't that time be better spent teaching them about classical argumentation? What real benefit do you get from using MOO assignments? First, none of us uses MOOs as the focal point of an entire semester. At most, we make one major MOO assignment. The benefits of this assignment are multiple. MOOs, quite simply, are natural environments for the teaching of writing and reading. They are worlds of words. Rhetoric becomes dynamic and visible in a MOO, giving students a real sense of how words work. Giving students the chance to "build" their arguments in MOO space, as Wolfe and Barndollar do, allows for a nontraditional experience of argumentation and literary interpretation that is a welcome break from the linear, classical model so many students dread. The nontraditional approach allows them to use their creativity and enjoy argumentation and interpretation as they never have. Finally, and certainly not least importantly, students like the MOO assignments. They are fun, new, and different. Students are intrigued by the many controversies surrounding MUDs and MOOs (stories of net sex, online rape, MOO marriages, etc.), and are eager to explore these environments and form their own opinions.5 The assignments keep their interest and give them a sense of technical achievement.
Teachers interested in working with MOOs do face some challenges. Wolfe, Barndollar and I -- and probably any instructors who, like us, logged our students onto a MOO without considering every possible pitfall -- have experienced our share of problems in class. Sometimes students need more hand-holding and training in MOO commands that you have allowed time for. Sometimes students get rowdy and act inappropriately. But thanks to projects like Composition in Cyberspace and Lingua MOO, resources are now readily available that make avoiding such problems much easier. Haynes and Holmevik's High Wired is filled with useful advice. And there are even some textbooks now available that cover MOOs. Two excellent ones are Haynes' and Holemevik's MOOniversity and Connections:A Guide to Online Writing, by Daniel Anderson, Bret Benjamin and Bill Paredes-Holt.
The following assignments do require access to a computer lab in which students can work on MOOs under your supervision for at least one class period. All of the classes mentioned below were computer-assisted classes, taught in CWRL facilities, so students did have ready access to computers. Two of the assignments also require MOO building privileges -- that is, your students must have permission from MOO administrators to create objects and manipulate their surroundings. If your school hosts its own MOO, this is usually not a problem. But even if your school does not have a MOO, many MOOs, like LambdaMOO, grant building privileges to any registered player.
Before even considering a MOO assignment, of course, an instructor must familiarize herself with basic commands and a few MOO environments. Several Web sites offer outstanding tutorials that cover absolutely everything a beginner needs to know. See the CWRL MOO page at www.cwrl.utexas.edu/moo/, or visit the Composition in Cyberspace page at www.du.org/places/du/cybercomp.html.
View Assignment One: How's Life in a MOO?