A case study of math and science teacher education in a collaborative virtual learning environment.

A class for math and science teachers dealing with computer animation on the World Wide Web (WWW or Web) was conducted in a collaborative virtual learning environment called ScienceMOO, Feedback obtained from the students and the instructor was analyzed using qualitative methods. It was found that the online lesson was very effective for many students although some had great difficulty with the interface and also with the necessity of using text to communicate. Some students felt that the nature of the learning activity was not well suited to this type of environment. Place-independence and cooperative learning were two aspects of the learning environment that especially appealed to the students. Suggestions and recommendations for improving online lessons in a collaborative virtual learning environment are provided.

At 4:00 pm, the instructor entered the classroom. A few students were already in the room and he greeted them quickly. Next he busied himself preparing three handouts for the night's class and checking his slide presentation. By 4:20 several more students had wandered into the classroom and the instructor greeted everyone and asked them to sit at tables according to their groups. The students were asked to read handouts one and two while waiting for the rest of the students to arrive. The title of the evening's lesson was "Let's get animated!" and it involved the use of computer animation in math and science teaching and learning.

This class was very different in one major respect from any classes these students had taken before.

Everything was taking place in cyberspace, in a collaborative virtual learning environment (CVLE).

The instructor was physically located in a hotel in Washington DC at a conference. Some students were seated in a University computer lab in New York City; some were connecting from their home computers in New York and other states, while others were in other computer labs located around the campus. All in all, 14 students attended class that evening. In addition, a senior math education professor, physically located in Staten Island, NY, was visiting the class as a "virtual observer." The actual location of the virtual classroom and CVLE was in ScienceMOO.

In this study the following research questions were investigated:

1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of using a CVLE in an online lesson for math and science teachers?

2. What do math and science teachers like most and least about learning in a CVLE?

3. What learning activities seem to be the most and least suitable in a CVLE?

What is a CVLE?

A CVLE is a shared space available online where learners can interact, communicate, and build knowledge. In other words, a CVLE is a subset of cyberspace where learning takes place. Within a CVLE communication takes place by computer-mediated communication. Other interaction besides communication can take place in a CVLE. For example, when groupware is used, persons can share files and applications. In a Multi User Dimension Object Oriented (MOO), visitors can communicate, and in addition, individuals can emulate everyday forms of physical interaction such as giving or taking objects, and more complex behaviors.

There are many examples of tools that can create a CVLE, some more effectively than others. Some examples of software that can create a CVLE can be seen in Table 1. Each tool allows users to interact using one or more of the following media: text, audio, video, 2D graphics, 3D graphics, and immersive 3D graphics. Another important aspect of each tool is whether it supports synchronous or asynchronous interaction or both. Finally, some tools mainly support low bandwidth communication only while others enable higher bandwidth communication, interaction in other ways such as application sharing, use of avatars, and even the building of artificial worlds.

This study used a MOO. This MOO was accessible through an integrated telnet-web interface. Webbed MOOs (WOO) are becoming increasingly common (Looi, Cheng, & Ang, 1999) and several varieties are now available.

What is a MOO?

A MOO is a Multi-User Dimension Object Oriented. A MOO consists of two main parts, a MOO server and a database. The server parses or interprets commands, controls connections to the network access to objects in the database, and executes programs written in MOO language. The database is made up of all of the objects in the MOO, and also MOO programs, which give the objects their individual properties and behaviors. A verb is a MOO procedure that performs a task. The use of MOO programming to create objects and verbs is what allows the creation of text-based virtual reality.

When a participant connects to a MOO they can either create a new character or connect to one that already exists. The participant then can give commands that are parsed by the MOO server. In a MOO everything is an object. A character is an object, and even rooms and their exits are objects (Becker, 1994).

Why Use a MOO?

A MOO was chosen for this study because of the following reasons:

1. It is freeware for educational purposes.

2. It functions well over relatively low bandwidth connections and is accessible using typical desktop computers.

3. It allows multiple modes of communication, both asynchronous and synchronous.

4. It allows users to build and construct objects, and virtual worlds.

5. It allows the use of many types of media, including sound, graphics, VRML, and Shockwave, video, and audio conferencing.

6. It is relatively easy to install and can function on multiple platforms.

7. It is an excellent tool for building online communities.

A Brief History of MOOs

The first Multi User Dungeon or Dimension (MUD) was created in 1979 as a Dungeons and Dragons game for multiple participants (Bruckman & Resnick, (1993). In most MUDs the object of the game was to kill monsters, gather treasure, and complete quests. The next step in the progress of the development of text-based virtual reality was the development of the MOO. According to its developer, Pavel Curtis of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (1993, p. 1) LambdaMOO "...is a network-accessible, multi-user, programmable, interactive system..." Curtis developed the MOO from original code written by Stephen White at the University of Waterloo (Blankenship, 1993). MOOs can be compiled and run on several operating systems, for example, AIX, BSD UNIX, SunOS 4.x, Linux, and so forth (Fox, 1995). All of the MOOs that exist today are descendants of the original LambdaMOO written by Pavel Curtis. A webbed MOO allows HTML to be embedded in MOO properties and verbs and makes it possible to control a MOO server while using a We b client. Probably the best known software for educational MOOs now is Encore, a project that develops open source code for educational MOOs (http://lingua.utdallas.edu/Encore/)

How does ScienceMOO work?

The MOO that was used in this study, ScienceMOO, was made up of three main parts: (a) the server, the latest version of LambdaMOO, (b) the database, Encore, and (c) BioGate, and Cup o Mud, Java clients which together make up the MOO-Web interface. First time users can enter "anonymous" or "guest" for username (depending on the type of MOO) and leave the password field blank. In the original ScienceMOO that used the Biogate interface, one would then click on the button reading "integrated web interface." Later versions of ScienceMOO have a different web interface that is supplied by the Encore database. It takes a minute or two to connect to the MOO depending on web traffic and the numbers of users connected to the MOO. Once one successfully connects to ScienceMOO three windows will appear on the screen. The top window is the "web window." Web pages and a web view of the MOO will be displayed in the top window. The bottom window is the "input window." This is where you type in commands, for example, to commun icate with others, to look at objects or to move from room to room. The middle window displays the results of your commands, for example, you will see the text of other people's communications and text descriptions of movement, and other occurrences in the MOO. Typing help will access the MOO help menu. MOOs that use the Encore Express interface rather than Biogate function slightly differently hut provide many of the same functions along with additional tools.

There are several ways to communicate in the MOO. Table 2 shows some of the MOO commands for communication.

Educational MOOs

A very good introduction to educational uses of MOOs can be found in the collection of articles edited by Cynthia Haynes and Jan Rune Holmevik (1998). MOOs have been used for a great variety of purposes and at almost all school levels from elementary school students who built virtual worlds, to college courses, and doctoral defenses. BioMOO is an excellent example of a MOO dedicated to Bioinformatics and genetics at the university level. Many of the important features of the latest MOOs, such as the BioMOO web interface, and the High Wired Encore educational moo core database, that have benefited the whole educational MOO community, were developed by Gustavo Glusman at the Weizmann Institute, and Jan Rune Holmevik University of Bergen and Cynthia Haynes of the University of Texas at Dallas, respectively.

Procedure

In the fall semester of 1998 preservice and inservice math and science teachers were enrolled in a course related to the use of microcomputers in math and science education. The course outline can be found at the following URL: http://sciedweb.com/murfin. The students had been shown the basics of using ScienceMOO and they had used the MOO in class frequently throughout the semester although the instructor was always physically in the computer lab with them.

On the day of the online lesson the class began at 4:20pm. The instructor clicked on a link "Who's in ScienceMOO" and took attendance. There were 14 students present out of a total of 17 at the beginning of the lesson. While waiting for everyone to settle in the students were directed to click and then read several handouts.

ScienceMOO incorporates a special educational core database entitled Encore that was developed by Jan Rune Holmevik of the University of Bergen and Cynthia Haynes of the University of Texas at Dallas. Encore provides many educational tools and devices that can help make interactions in the MOO more user-friendly and productive. Encore includes a generic classroom that contains such objects as tables, a blackboard, a clock, and so forth. The tables are actually a very critical item. When more than 10 people begin interacting in a normal room, chaos can quickly result. People who are seated at a table can communicate with each other without disturbing the rest of the class. The "speakup" command can be used to communicate with the class as a whole. People seated at tables will also see messages from those who are standing. The students were asked to sit at tables of their choice. Once the students were seated at tables the communication load became manageable.

The instructor had prepared a detailed lesson plan beforehand. During the lesson a virtual slide projector was used to project web pages onto all the students' computer screens simultaneously. The instructor began the class by asking the students to think back to all the animations they had seen during their years in school. They were asked to try and remember examples of how animations helped them to learn math or science and to post this on the class webboard. The students successfully posted their messages and some of the responses were quite interesting. For example, one student claimed that an episode of the Simpsons cartoon that incorporated a three-eyed fish in a local body of water near a nuclear power plant helped her become aware of radiation as a cause of genetic mutations. After this the instructor led a short discussion on the science of how animations produce the effect of movement. The instructor asked the students how animations produce their effect. He then asked them how many had ever drawn stick figures in the pages of a book and then flipped the pages to produce the illusion of motion. It was then explained that the movement is produced through the effect of the persistence of an image on the retina of the eye.

After this the instructor asked the class how computers could be used to create animations. Different options for producing animation on the web were mentioned, for example, Java applets, JavaScript, Shockwave movies, and animated GIFs. The students were told that animated GIFs are a very robust type of animation and very easy to create. Two types of software were needed: (a) an image processing application such as Adobe Photoshop, and (b) software to produce an animated GIF, for example, Gif Construction Set for Windows.

Information was given to the students throughout the lesson by typing in directions and questions and also through the use of a virtual slide projector. The instructor could display slides (web pages) on all of the students' screens simultaneously. This has some benefits and some drawbacks. The instructor can make sure that everyone is at the same starting point. However, it quickly became apparent that not everyone was proceeding through the lesson at the same pace and sometimes a slide would be projected while the student was still looking at another web page.

A web page was projected on all the students' screens from an animated GIF tutorial on the Web. The students' first task was to right click on five different images and then to save them on their computers. All of the students had previously been asked to download and install a shareware application named the Gif Construction Set for Windows on their own computer. The students were told to work their way through the tutorial and to create and test their animated GIF. The final animation showed a flying saucer landing on a planet surface. All of the students successfully created the animation. Throughout this part of the lesson, the instructor sat down at different tables and provided encouragement and assistance. After everyone was finished the instructor now asked the students to think about how they might use animation to help students learn specific math or science concepts.

RESULTS

Locations of Students and Instructor

During the lesson the instructor was physically located in Washington DC in a hotel attending a conference. A Windows Pentium laptop with a 33.7 kbps modem connection was used to connect to the Internet. The locations of the students can be seen in Table 2.

Observations from the Instructor

The lesson was very demanding and tiring for the instructor. In normal classrooms there are turn taking cues that control the rate at which questions are asked of the instructor. For example, students raise their hands, or wait for eye contact from the instructor, or until someone stops speaking before asking a question. In the CVLE every student can theoretically ask the instructor a question at the same time. Although the author did not quantify this, it was apparent that many more questions were asked than in a face-to-face class (FTF) in the computer lab. There was also much more individual interaction among the students in the CVLE than in the FTF computer lab. The presence of computers in fixed rows in the computer lab seems to inhibit student-instructor and student-student interaction and removing these physical obstacles improved the quality and quantity of interaction.

Another factor that may have led to this increased interaction was that the use of computer-mediated communication (GMC) and its narrow bandwidth that eliminates body language, tone of voice, and so forth. The lack of these cues can easily lead to disinhibition. During the lesson some students "whispered" to the instructor and the instructor communicated on an individual basis with every single student in the class. The instructor also interacted with the whole class by questioning, giving instructions and guidance during the activities.

An additional complication was the need for "wait time."(Rowe, 1996) In a FTF classroom it has been shown that the use of wait time I and II (Stahl, 1994) can improve the quantity and quality of student responses to questions. In a CVLE wait time becomes even more important. There was a great range of skill among the students with the computer interface and keyboard, and thus the instructor needs to pause frequently after entering questions or giving instructions. This can lead to boredom on the part of fast keyboarders and students who are very adept with the interface. However, the instructor does need to be very comfortable with the interface and a fairly fast typist otherwise the lesson will not flow smoothly.

This class was designed to support active, inquiry-based learning. Because some students were accessing the CVLE over a modem there was also the potential problem of lag time. Lag, or a delay in response could be caused by many different problems, lack of bandwidth, database bloat, overloading of the MOO server leading to a lack of RAM, web congestion, problems with the client machine running Java applets slowly, etc. The upshot is that the instructor has to somehow help students who are responding slowly and also keep students who are quick to respond constructively occupied. One good solution is to have students work in virtual groups on learning tasks. The students who are more adept with the interface can help the instructor provide individual assistance to those who need it and this actually occurred during the lesson.

Some interesting incidents took place during the lesson. One student arrived late to class in ScienceMOO. The latecomer was obviously not very knowledgeable about MOO netiquette. She repeatedly asked the instructor questions while he was trying to conduct the lesson. Her questions appeared on everyone's screen interspersed between the instructions and information being delivered by the instructor. Some of the students became annoyed and "told" the student to "sit down at a table" and listen. The instructor managed to whisper a private comment to the latecomer asking her to wait until the class activity started. The student finally got the message and "sat" down and began taking part in the activity.

Feedback from the Students

The students were asked to complete an online survey on the lesson and to return it to the instructor by way of email. All fourteen students replied. There was great variety in the responses and the majority of comments were favorable towards the use of the MOO. However, there were some students whose comments were either totally positive or totally negative. Obviously CVLE's at this state of their development do not meet all students' needs. The results are summarized below:

Positive comments. These comments have been placed into five categories.

1. Positive comments related to the "place-independent" nature of ScienceMOO:

* "It was my first 'real' online class. First, physically it was really convenient, in terms of space-unlimited. For example, I mostly have to stay home because of my son. Another thing was the way I could communicate with other people was easier than I thought. I think that last week's class could be applied or developed to use for worldwide online classes."

* "I liked not having to travel to _____. I liked being able to use my computer at home, a much better machine than the ones in the lab."

* "One great advantage was that we could still have class when the instructor was in out of town."

* "I liked how people who were not in the class could still participate in class."

2. Positive comments related to increased communication and interaction:

* "I thought the way we all communicated with each other through the computer was fascinating. The way that this was set up and the way it worked was unbelievable. Also, I loved the way you were able to put us all on different web sites... I told my friends about the type of class that we held last week, but they couldn't understand the concept. I told them how cool it was and how weird it was to be able to do something like that. I hoped to have more opportunities to do this in this class or in any other class. It makes class more enjoyable."

* "Easy to communicate with others."

* "I liked the fact that this gave everyone a chance to work on his or her own pace. I liked the lesson plan itself."

* "Liked the teamwork in the class where people were helping those who weren't sure what to do."

* "Liked the fact that the instructor was there to assist, 'Virtual Brian' was cool."

* "Thanks Brian for being so patient with me last Monday."

* "It was a different experience. Although I wasn't in class physically, I felt like I was in class. I had to pay extra attention to what was going on because I could not hear anything. I had to read everything. I was lost a couple times in the beginning but you were helpful and I felt comfortable using the media throughout the rest of the class."

3. Positive comments related to the nature of the activity:

* "One of the most fun lectures."

* "The animated GIF tutorial web site was very suited to online instruction."

* "The activity was very interesting."

* "I liked the class last week. Are there sites where I can find other computer animated GIF's?"

* "I really liked the animation thing we did. It was really cool and easy too. I feel that way about all this stuff. It seems hard, but as soon as you do it, it's not a problem at all."

* "It was interesting and I think a good lesson to have over the MOO."

4. Positive comments related to the technology itself:

* Liked that "I was able to see a REAL-LIFE and usable application of software/networking theory."

5. Miscellaneous positive comments.

* "For deaf students, such an environment could be wonderfully liberating."

Negative comments:

1. Technical problems with the MOO.

* One student could not connect to the MOO.

2. Problems with "text input" and "text overload."

* "For students who are not fast or accurate typists, this environment could be enormously frustrating"

* "Couldn't keep up with reading all the messages because there were so many people talking."

* "The MOO was just really busy and frustrating. If you missed something and tried to go back and read what you missed, if someone entered something in, the computer would automatically scroll back to the new message. It was hard to read sometimes."

* It was hard to follow everything we were trying to do. I would definitely not like to have class like that often. It is very easy to fall behind and then get lost in the class. I found it frustrating to not be able to communicate the problems I was having during class."

3. Problems with the nature of the learning activity.

* Some students got bored since they were able to accomplish the task of creating the animation much more quickly than other students

* "The lesson was a little slow. Once I was able to get the animation, there was nothing else to do really."

* "It was just a little difficult to read the instructions and then do the activity. I kind thought it would have been better if we had handouts, but that might have defeated the purpose of being on the computer."

4. Lack of familiarity with the MOO.

* "Some were a bit uncomfortable and not quite sure what to do."

* "Would be more comfortable with more experience in the MOO."

* "It took a while to get started, it was difficult to explain things since the instructor wasn't physically present."

Ideas from the Students for Improving the MOO Lesson.

1. The learning activity.

* "Keep people more involved by randomly asking questions." (This student was bored and was surfing the net.)

* "Keep the activity easy to follow so that the class isn't all over the place."

* "Know more of what to expect during the lesson." (The students did not know what activity we were doing that day, other than that it was related to the use of computer animation.)

* "Use it for purposes where there are less people involved."

2. Familiarity with the MOO.

* "More experience and skill with the MOO, hold class more often in the MOO."

* A student wanted to meet before and be walked through what we were going to do. "I think for those who were not in the computer lab, it was tough for them to follow along, whereas for the rest of us, we could ask each other."

* "I think a class using the MOO is good to have if you have a class of students who are very comfortable with computers but with students still learning it is intimidating and frustrating."

* "I think my experience could have been better if I knew ahead of time what we were going to do that day. I didn't know what to expect and this added to my confusion in the beginning. I think the next time, if we were to have another session like that, it would run smoother since everyone had practice with it."

3. Organization of the MOO environment.

* "Have set tables for everyone at the beginning instead of letting groups choose tables."

* "Send the URL of slides displayed or put it into the dialogue so students could 'catch up'. Sometimes people were not looking at the appropriate web page."

* "If one wasn't in the right place when you hit 'display,' one didn't get the web site displays. There must be a way to either broadcast the URL (for those of use who didn't get the display) or put it into the dialogue so one could catch up."

* "Change the size of the web screen and writing screen on the MOO."

Ideas from the Instructor for Improving the MOO Lesson

Computer and MOO-related changes. The MOO software and its web interface are freeware and this has great benefits to researchers, educators, and students. However, it is not certain whether it will be possible to keep building on top of this platform and still implement the modifications necessary to make this tool more effective in teaching and learning. The idea of the MOO is very powerful and other software to be created in the future could serve similar functions. The MOO is something that is available here and now and it does work so we really need to think about how far we can really go with it before starting to build a new collaborative virtual learning environment from the ground up. The MOO may continue to evolve into just the sort of place needed to allow students and teachers to have enriching and effective science learning experiences. What follows are some suggestions for improvements to the webbed MOO environment. These may not be feasible for many reasons, such as technical difficulty in impl ementation, lack of bandwidth, economic reasons, or lack of enough evidence to warrant the time and effort to carry them out.

Suggestions for Improvements to Online Learning in MOOs

1. More experience for teachers and students with computers and the MOO. There were many ways in which this learning experience could have been improved. If the students had more experience with computers and the MOO, things would have gone much more smoothly. Students need gentle and gradual introductions to the MOO. Another essential element is that the students need to perceive the MOO as being used appropriately.

2. Help users improve keyboarding skills along with less reliance on typing. The interface should allow for more interaction using methods other than typing. For example, point and click commands, voice input, drag and drop operations (especially building commands), and more user-friendly form-based creation of objects, properties, and verbs.

3. Solve the "empty MOO "problem. Although this was not a problem during the lesson, this did occur throughout the semester. A common complaint of students is that they get very excited about using the MOO and then when they enter it later at another time on another day, many times no one is in the MOO. This can be extremely disappointing to the novice MOO user and if this happens several times it is enough to discourage the visitor from coming back. One possible solution would be to use bots to greet visitors. However, to make this truly effective the bots would have to be programmed to have a rich repertoire of responses or visitors would quickly tire of the interaction. Perhaps the best solution is to recruit MOO administrators, helpers, and so forth from populations of individuals for whom the MOO would be a more effective way for them to interact with others than face-to-face encounters. Examples of populations such as these would be physically disabled students who are homebound, wheelchair bound, resid ents of retirement homes, students from isolated areas of the country and the world. A symbiotic relationship could develop where the MOO provides a venue for a group of people who lack access to the physical world while the same people are the "glue" that holds together the MOO community.

Inclusion of voice recognition. The development of Voice MarkUp Language for the Web (VOXML) may make this possible in the near future. This could allow many of the commands used in the MOO to be input using voice and text to be read aloud. While there is fairly effective voice recognition software available, it is expensive, requires a massive amount of RAM and hard drive space, and is time-consuming to set up.

Ability to more easily project slides to individuals. Presently slides can be projected to everyone in the room and also to individuals but it does involve laborious typing. If it were possible to quickly display a specific slide to a specific student this would be a great benefit. An instructor could point out mistakes and tutor individuals. As it is now, the awkwardness of the slide projector results in most of the class proceeding through the lesson in lockstep or by passively viewing a presentation.

Reduction of screen clutter. Less scrolling, alternatives to scrolling. A solution to this problem is necessary. A very common complaint from students is the rapidly disappearing text and the problems of trying to scroll backwards while new text is appearing. One possible solution to this would be to have text transferred to a separate pop-up menu after a certain number of lines. This window would stay open and could be accessed when necessary while not interfering with new text. Another way to reduce screen clutter would be to have a bot ask students to sit at a table as soon as students enter the classroom. Another possibility would be enable students could set a table as their "Home" and be whisked to their assigned table as soon as they connected to the MOO. A separate pop-up window could be available to monitor movements in and out of the room. This should be done graphically in an ideal environment. In this way, all text describing movements in and out of rooms could be eliminated from the communication channel. A final option would be to set up the web browser with a text-to-voice capability. If the client computer could convert text to voice, the student could switch off text from appearing and use vocal input and output.

Research will need to be carried out to determine which of these changes would be beneficial.

Elimination of commands for communication, that is a command mode and communication mode for individuals. There should be an easily visible button and also a text command that would allow one to switch from command mode to communication mode. In communication mode one would be able to input text in the same way as in a chat room without the obligatory "say" One could have an emote button, and buttons for whisper, shout, and page, and so forth. This would make the MOO much easier for newcomers who are sometimes helpless for quite some time until they figure out how to communicate. The beginnings of something like this are available in newer versions of the Encore database but it is still cumbersome and confusing to new users.

Improvements in Lesson Design

The students should be given the procedure and background information before the lesson. The MOO would then serve as the meeting place for carrying out a procedure that was described before entry into the MOO. The students would not have to read instructions from within the MOO and could concentrate on communicating with their fellow group members. If all students had table assignments before they entered the MOO that would have cut down on confusion also. The students would be required to put the product of their group work on the Web where the instructor could check it and other students could view it. Groups should be kept small and should always be seated at their "table" to minimize clutter on the screen.

Ideal types of learning activities for the MOO would be group discussions, group problem solving and brainstorming sessions. Lessons that call for individual work and following a prescribed series of steps should be avoided in the MOO. The MOO environment is just too "noisy" to allow individuals to concentrate on problems that require students to work individually.

Improvements in Teaching Methods

The instructor should not try to "lecture" but instead should facilitate group discussions and be available to answer individual questions. The instructor could deliver an introduction to the class to motivate, gain attention, and focus the group's attention on the day's topic and also to specify the goals of the lesson before the group activities begin. Once the students start working on their assigned tasks, whole group lecture should stop. It is almost pointless to direct comments to the whole class once they start working. In this way, the online lesson is very similar to a face-to-face class in a computer lab. In fact, continual instructions while the students are working on a task can provoke anxiety in the students, as many will probably miss parts of instructions due to the large amount of text scrolling by on the screen.

CONCLUSIONS

The MOO seems to have very great potential to create and enhance certain learning situations. The "Let's Get Animated" lesson worked fairly well but it was not as effective as the same lesson would have been in a face-to-face classroom. This was due to the fact that the type of lesson and pedagogical techniques used were not the most suited for the MOO environment, as it exists today. The MOO should be used judiciously and it is vital to gather regular feedback from the students and use their advice to modify the environment and experience where necessary. For example, certain hands-on science activities, for example, a lesson on pendulums, should not take place in a MOO since it would be an inferior substitute for the real thing. However, holding class in a MOO could enhance a lesson that involved small group discussions by students aimed at solving problems or carrying out research projects. If these students happened to be located in different parts of the world then the MOO will make available a new and unique educational experience possible that could not have taken place otherwise. Discussions and group problem solving in a MOO capitalize on the positive aspects of computer mediated communication such as increased equality of participation in group discussion, disinhibition, and benefits of increased control over self and the environment granted by being able to create in a virtual world.

The ability to build both a world and a new identity (Turkle, 1984) hold the potential to give power to the powerless and to include those that have been marginalized in our society. This very powerful feature of the MOO, the ability to construct virtual worlds, has even more potential in assessment and evaluation of students in that it will allow students to present their work and ideas to other students and to their teachers in multiple ways and with a variety of media. We need to learn how to take advantage of the tremendous power and potential of collaborative virtual learning environments. Giving the power to create virtual worlds and to communicate to teachers and learners will enable them to develop new tools and ways to survive in a very new type of world, a world of augmented reality (Rose, 1995) where the virtual blends seamlessly with the real.

However, MOOs are still at a fairly primitive stage of development. MOOs may just be a passing phase but the principles they have pioneered, of a shared online database built on object-oriented principles that is easily modified and added to by selected users, will prove very useful in the construction of future artificial worlds. One major weakness of webbed MOOs is the dependence on Java applets. The unpredictable state of users' client machines, and the increasing security concerns and resulting firewalls protecting school networks, make it difficult to rely on MOOs being available to all schools. A server side solution to this problem that would reduce the dependence on Java applets would be very welcome. In any event, MOOs and their associated communities are the pioneers that will blaze a trail to improved virtual worlds in the future.

In addition to technical difficulties MOOs do take quite some getting used to, and can actually be very disconcerting for first-time users. Expectations change in virtual worlds. People become much more demanding and expect immediate attention compared to a face-to-face situation.

MOOs or their analogs, and their successors will need to develop much more user-friendly interfaces that enable higher-bandwidth communication and seamless and continual updating of the database before they become truly useful educational tools. In the meantime however, they can bring about collaboration and create communities that would not be possible otherwise. The offspring of MOOs could very well become the "constructivist learning environments" that so many researchers are seeking (Wilson, 1996).

Table 1

Characteristics of Tools That Can Be Used to Create Collaborative
Virtual Learning Environments

TOOLS USED TO CREATE                       EXAMPLES
COLLABORATIVE VIRTUAL
LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Asynchronous           E-mail lists        Lyris, Listserves
text tools             Bulletin boards
                       Web boards
                       Computer            Alfa Vista Forum
                       conferences

Synchronous text,      Chat rooms          ICQ
audio, video tools     Instant
                       messengers
                       Internet telephony  Dialpad.com,
                                           Internet Phone
                       Videoconferencing   CU-SeeMe,
                                           MS Netmeeting

Groupware, with                            Lotus Notes,
whiteboards, file,                         MS
and application                            Netmeeting
sharing, synchronous
and asynchronous

CMC

Artificial Worlds                          The Palace
Without building
capability

Artifical Worlds       Tex-based VR,       LambdaMOO,
With building          MOOs                Diversify U.,
capability             Webbed Moos -       BioMOO,
                       WOO                 ScienceMOO

Immersive virtual                          ScienceSpace
reality without
building capability

Immersive virtual                          Not available -
reality with                               Still to come! -
building capability                        May be possible
                                           with Internet 2 speeds

TOOLS USED TO CREATE   SENSORY
COLLABORATIVE VIRTUAL  MODELITY/BANDWIDTH
LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Asynchronous           Text/low
text tools             Text/low
                       Text/low
                       Text/low


Synchronous text,      Text/low
audio, video tools
                       Text/low
                       Audio/high

                       Video, audio,
                       text/very high

Groupware, with        Text, audio, file sharing,
whiteboards, file,     application sharing/very
and application        high
sharing, synchronous
and asynchronous

CMC

Artificial Worlds      Text, avatars/high
Without building
capability

Artifical Worlds       Text/flow
With building          Text, audio, video, 3D
capability             graphics, VRML/high


Immersive virtual      3D graphics, audio,
reality without        haptic interface/extremely
building capability    high

Immersive virtual      Not available - Still to
reality with           come!
building capability    All senses
                       supported/extremely high

Note: There are exceptions in each category of CVLE.
Table 2

MOO Commands for Communication

MOO commands for            Example of Use
communication
between two users,
Patrick and Garret

say (this can be seen       say Hello there!
by everyone in a room)

to (this is directed to     to Garret Could you please
an individual)              sit down? We are ready to begin.


whisper (private, directed  whisper "Do you have a
to an individual)           question?" to Garret

page (sends a message       page Garret I will be glad to
to someone privately        help you after we get the lesson
anywhere in the MOO)        started.



@shout (sends a message     @shout Please come here.
to everyone in the MOO)

emote (allows a person      emote smiles
to use body language,
e.g., gestures)


MOO commands for            What others in the
communication               room see
between two users,
Patrick and Garret

say (this can be seen       Patrick says, "Hello
by everyone in a room)      there!"

to (this is directed to     Patrick [to Garret]:
an individual)              Could you please sit down?
                            We are ready to begin.

whisper (private, directed  Patrick whispers,
to an individual)           "Do you have a question?"

page (sends a message       You sense that Patrick is
to someone privately        looking for you in the Lounge.
anywhere in the MOO)        He pages, "I will be glad to
                            help you after the lesson is
                            started."

@shout (sends a message     Patrick shouts "Please come
to everyone in the MOO)     here"

emote (allows a person      Patrick smiles
to use body language,
e.g., gestures)
Table 3

The Physical Locations of Students During Online MOO Lesson

Student Locations           Number

Regular computer lab where   11
 the class is held
Other computer lab at NYU     1
Home                          3

References

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Curtis, P. (1993). LambdaMOO programmer's manual [Online]. (Retrieved January 14, 2002) Available: ftp://ftp.lambda.moo.mud.org/pub/MOO/ProgrammersManual_toc.html

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