Collaborative Text-Based Virtual Learning Environments

MOOs are text-based online environments that allow users to create representations of people, places, and things and share them with others (Nolan, 2001). A MOO is a collaborative space where people come together for communal purposes. They construct the MOO-space according to agreed upon criteria. They can create their own towns, buildings, rooms, objects, and personal avatars and then interact with others in these created spaces. The spaces can be institutional—like a school or a classroom—or they can be literary, like the topology of a novel. Or they can be chaotic, like a frat house. Each MOO has its own personality, characteristics, special features, and purpose that create cohesion and community within its boundaries.

MOOs are collaborative online virtual environments that go worlds beyond the concept of a chat room, online game, or a simulation. A simple way to visualize a MOO is to think of a chat room, then add a room description so the chatters have some idea of a place, perhaps graphics, a character description for each user, objects that the participants can pick up, handle, and manipulate. Allowthe participants the ability to create their ownobjects or object behaviors (e.g., an object designed as a dog may bark at irregular intervals), or to work together to create as many rooms as they would like and link them all together to create a house, office building, or village. Throw in the potential for HTML and multimedia content and tools, and you will begin to have the idea. Unlike online role-playing games (RPGs and MRPGs), there is no inherent restriction or limitation as towhat can be created orwhat object behaviors can be initiated or how they may be modified.