Educational Tools in The MOO
Because faculty members at universities were holding class sessions on DU MOO, the MOO wizards developed objects that provided some typical classroom capabilities. For example, faculty members on the MOO could use a "Generic Slide Projector" to "project" a series of text "slides" to everyone in the room, which allowed faculty members to give "pre-recorded" instructions to students, without having to type those instructions on the spot. An object called a $note (basically, a kind of text file) could be created to work like a blackboard. When students entered a room (for example, a separate room for small-group discussions), students could "read" the blackboard, which would give them questions to discuss or instructions on what to do during the class time. If faculty members wanted to record the discussions that took place in a room, they could use a "Generic Recording Device" to create a transcript of the session, for later review. Although similar tools have now been incorporated into Learning Management Systems, Multi-User Virtual Environments, and other programs for online conferencing, some of those tools were subject to the criticisms leveled by Tari Fanderclai, who asserted that faculty using new pedagogical environments like a MOO should adapt their teaching techniquest to take advantage of the special possibilities of the MOO, rather than trying to make a MOO more like a traditional classroom.
The online teaching tools did help faculty members conduct their classes within the decentralized and potentially chaotic MOO world, and they reveal as well the power and flexibility of the Object-oriented programming environment. Faculty members did not need to possess programming skills to create objects within the MOO world that performed significant functions. If they wanted an object on which they could write notes, comparable to a course blackboard, they could create an object of that class, which would inherit all the features of the parent object. If they wanted a Generic Recording Device to record the student discussions that went on in the room, they could issue a relatively simple command (for example, @create #2978 named MyRecorder), which would create for them an object with those desired features. Faculty pioneers using the MOO could create lists of MOO help sheets — for example, MOO Help and Policy Texts, and the Composition in Cyberspace Project — making it easier for other faculty to use the environment. That cooperative spirit of users helping one another out — the recognition that "everyone was once a newbie " — informed Diversity University MOO. Its shared, collaborative, highly social environment made it an early example (along with other MOOs) of a Social network service, with a kind of network effect that resembled later Web 2.0 environments.
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