MOO

Draft

Definition

• A MOOs is a Text-based virtual reality
• MOO = MUD, Object Oriented, so a MOO is a kind of MUD.

MOOs in education

MOOs very quite popular in education in the mid-nineties. They were used for a variety of purposes:

• Distance teaching virtual environments
• Virtual meeting spaces (like Chat
• Non-intrusive collaboration
• Learning environments (e.g. quests)
• As constructivist environment to learn programming
• As living hypertexts (text with people)
• Social rules experimentation and learning.
• Familiarization with online spaces and international exchange (activities with kids).

MOOs also were popular as environment for carrying out research, e.g. topics like

• Collaboration (e.g. Dillenburg et al. 1997)
• Sociology
• Identity

In 2006, text-based virtual communities have lost a lot of attraction, since some functionalities can be replaced by integrated environments such as groupware, C3MS or LMS but they are still used for a variety of purposes (since replacements are not really available).

Software

In order to run a MOO, you need a server and a database. The database contains a lot of code without which building a MOO is extremely difficult ....

The MOO server

• Download from Source Forge

Moo Databases

• Lingua MOO, home of enCore. Update: Both these sites are dead now (however the project is not dead, see next).

• enCore Learning Environment (MOO database recommended by DSchneider). Take version 4.x (Version 5 Beta uses the MOO server, but somewhat departs from the text-input paradigm).
  • Note the database at eNcore Open Source MOO Project is old. Do not use it.

Moo-like environments

(e.g. alternatives)

• Moose Crossing - "A text-based virtual world (or "MUD") designed to help kids to learn reading, writing, and computer programming" from Georgia Tech.

Links

The Lost Library of MOO Best resource for MOO research papers.

References

• Bruckman, A. et Resnick, M. (1993). Virtual Professional Community: Results from the MediaMOO Project. In Third Internation Conference on Cyberspace, Austin, Texas. URL: PS

• P. Dillenbourg, P. Jermann, D. Schneider, D. Traum, C. Buiu, (1997) The design of MOO agents: Implications from a study on multi-modal collaborative problem solving, Proceedings 8th World Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, Kobe, Japan. HTML.