MOOS. MUDS Avatars and Virtual Rooms / Chat

This week has been a bit frantic for me. It was my turn to facilitate and the task was 7.2 The Palace. The Palace is a virtual 3-D Chat room where you come as a person (made up) and chat to others. This proved to be too much for our IT Department who spat the dummy about - security, virus infestation, streaming, comes link. They would not let this be down loaded.
I feel that the nearsightedly of some people are positively hindering progression and exploration. After all MIT is meant to be a pioneer of technology and to bring our students into the future. Our students are mostly from the gen X and Y (more Y) and are at home with virtual chats, games on line and on line research. Our technology is not. After one evening trying to download the palace at home, I and others gave up. System requirements
I went into another site www.socialise.co.nz this was a lot easier on my old computer at home. (Still couldn't use this at MIT) This was a lot of fun. I created an avatar Chilli - with black hair and blue streaks, green skin and a red dress. Went into the cafe and became acquainted with the room. It took some dexterity to move in a single motion not jerky steps. My gross motor skills are rusty. This has proved to be a fun exercise to learn from


Reflections -

• Facilitating is not as easy as it looks. Trying to keep everyone interested enough to participate. If a step fails, have a second or even third plan as a Back up.
• When building courses on line, be aware that all technology is not the same.
• I could see the positive uses of having virtual chat rooms - for ESOL students to practice their English in short sentences, to revise new words, to use the power of vision, audio, and writing skills to reinforce learning.
• Need to have a variety of ways to keep the passion of teaching alive.
• Need to have variety to retain students interest.
• Could be used as a set up for simulated situations (Sandra Elias mentioned that it could be used as a virtual birthing room - email 6th September 2006)
• I could envisage the use as simulated case studies to actively participate in : scenario 1, 2, 3 etc.

Creating Avatars are fun and it seems the rest of the group have wholeheartedly joined in this. Tim and I took over this session as Shayna has baulked at the prospect. A little bit of fantasy did me good. It seems that we all like to wear masks sometimes and hide behind another identity.

Sandra Elias facilitated MOOS and MUDS

I went into three sites and found two to be really fascinating.. I got taken around a backstade theatre, instructed in scenes from Midsummers Night Dream (nicely written). The characters were described in detail, so was the setting the scene before the acts. Afterwards I went on a MOO visit around the streets of London till I got to the theatre. The second MOO I found entertaining was Star Trek. I was given a complete run down on the language and culture of each major planet - Klinon etc and how far away each planet was from the Federation. The currency, customs etc were described all in colour.

Reflections

Positives - I liked the way the plot was written. As far a visual learners go (I am one) I noticed clear text which helped me read the plots. There was pleanty of consideration of not cramming in too much on the screen - white space. If I was teaching English Level 2, I would certainly use this site as a group exercise. Great way for groups to learn their lines and to engage in practicing their literacy skills.
Nice way to reinforce theory subjects by making it into a game.
Visually appealing to watch starship enterprise whoosh in warp factor nine with klingons on the starboard bough.
Good if you had History or Geography as subjects to animate. (Imagine the impact of setting off a missile.
Negatives - One of the sites I went too was a Star Trek MOO. I found the directions unclear and couldn't find the link to search for inhabited planets. Unless there are clear directions one could become very lost super quick. This would add to the level of frustration a student may feel if faced with an online task not clearly mapped. What I found confusing though was the black screen and white writing. Knowing what commands to type to get from a - b was limiting. When we design courses with MOOs there should be clear instructions for easier navigation.

Overall the summary goes like this:

Positives -

• Visually reinforces literacy, and language (written and spoken)
• Fun way to learn
• Could be used as instructor rooms (birthing, case studies)
• Encourages shy members of the group to actively participate
• Could be used to reinforce theory
• Could be used in long distance education where a paratical element is required (lab work)

Negatives-

• Beware of different time zones when asking group members to participate.
• Compatibility with software and hardware and file sizes
• Firewalls and Security protocols are restrictive in some institutions
• May not be culturally acceptable to all students.
• Full of virus's

Maryanne 7/9