Existing MOO Resources

USING EXISTING MOO RESOURCES

Teachers who are new to MOO, or who have neither the time nor the inclination to learn to program in MOO so that they can develop learning activities for themselves, can use resources which already exist within the MOO environment to provide meaningful, engaging and purposeful learning experiences for their learners.

WHAT RESOURCES EXIST IN MOO?

Three major sets of resources are readily available within most MOOs:

other players
MOO-based tools
readymade activities

OTHER PLAYERS

For the language learner, one of the most valuable resources in-MOO lies in the ability to communicate with live native and non-native speakers of the target language. Such interaction provides:

instant feedback - the learner is immediately made aware by her/his interlocutor's reaction whether s/he has communicated successfully

authentic communicative acts - in the real classroom, discussions between learners about, say, the current state of the weather, must, by their very nature, be inauthentic. All the participants in the exchange are in the same physical location and so can see local weather conditions for themselves. In a distributed learning environment such as MOO, users are based in different locations around the world, and so even the most trivial enquiry can take on a new level of purpose - weather conditions for a learner in, for example, Brazil, are much more likely to be of interest to the learner in the United Kingdom than her/his own local conditions, particularly because these can be reported as they are happening.

Interviewing existing players in a MOO is a very popular activity for language learners. It is necessary to remember, however, that regular MOO users may become irritated by frequent interviews and that this activity, if taken to excess, could be counter-productive, in that players who are regularly approached by language learners may become increasingly less co-operative.

Other activities which involve existing players may include:

providing help and information about using the MOO and its tools
helping your learners to describe their (guest) characters
helping your learners to describe their rooms, room entrances and room exits appropriately
playing in-MOO games

NB If you wish to take your learners to a MOO for any purpose, it is advisable to contact the MOO's administrators in advance and to discuss your intentions with them. They will usually be able to advise you about the number of learners who are involved in activities on the MOO, and on what types of activity are currently underway. The number of guest characters available on any MOO is limited, and it is considered impolite to use all those characters for your own learners without prior arrangement.

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MOO-BASED TOOLS

While there are tools, such as online dictionaries, which are specific to particular MOOs, some tools can be found in most MOOs. The best way to find out how they work and what can be done with them is to log into a MOO and try them out. Information about these tools, and some suggestions about how to use them, can be found by clicking here.

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READYMADE ACTIVITIES

Most educational MOOs provide flexible, readymade activities or areas which the can be used in any way the learner/teacher wishes. Such activities and areas may include:

in-MOO games
classrooms and meeting rooms
information-rich areas such as virtual libraries or descriptions of real places with links to external resources such as the World Wide Web

Although there may be in-MOO suggestions about how to use readymade activities, the only real limit on what learners do with them is imposed by their imaginations.

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Last updated 30th January 1999
Authors: Lesley Shield and Markus J.Weininger