Index

Who are we?

Lesley began life as a professional language tester (yes, there are such beings!), moved into ESP teaching, dictionary editing and speech technology before working as a teacher trainer and developer for several years. She then saw the light, retrained and moved into ICT and learning, stopping off to work for Enterprise in Higher Education and to manage a couple of European-funded projects on the way. She now advises on the use of ICT for language learning (at a distance) and is a lecturer in technology and language learning at the British Open University. She is currently involved in developing the pedagogy of using audiographics tools for language learning, particularly French and German, and moving on to Spanish, and researches the use of communications tools, especially MOO. for (distance) language learning. If you look at the link to Lesley (below), you'll find that she has two co-writers, Lawrence (Larry) B.Davies, based in Japan, and Markus J.Weininger, based in Southern Brazil. She has found MOO to be an excellent tool in the preparation of various joint projects and writing papers with them. 

You can find more about Lesley here. 

Lesley's current favourite links

• The Centre for the Easily Amused.
• Colloquialisms and Slang.
• The Ultimate Chat Dictionary.
• The Tacky Postcard Archive.
• Classic 164 Currency Converter.
• Mail start - POP email checker for Web Browsers

truna aka j.turner originally became interested in technology back in the seventies when she was supposed to be becoming an anthropologist but accidently signed up for a course in artificial intelligence (only ask for the full story in the flesh). Since then she has discovered that this combination is actually rather useful and is now a digital literacist at the queensland university of technology in brisbane, australia. truna has taught english and CALL in a number of countries over the years and has happily landed in the land of oz where she now concentrates on educational technology and text based virtual realites as 'bigger places to play'. 

You can find more about truna here. 

truna's current favourite links

• Virtual Personalities - home of the sassy 'Sylvie'
• Dr. Gavin Miller's Snake Robots - 'nuff said
• Blakes Seven - probably more than 'nuff said!
• Amazon.com - the most useful bookshop on the planet - and they just sent me a free mug!
• The Brain.com - a most unusual personal organiser

Session One : Basic MOO navigation

If you have time before this session, please read through the GrassRoots web page at: http://www.enabling.org/GrassRoots/
 

1. Point your client program to: GrassRoots MOO. The telnet address is: moo.enabling.org:8888
2. Enter GrassRoots either as a guest [connect guest] or use the player name and password you have been given
3. Once you have logged into the MOO, type @who
4. You should see Lesley and truna waiting for you. Type @join Lesley 

Session Two : Basic Building

Today you are going to learn some basic building commands and discuss the potential of this constructive use of MOO spaces. You should have already agreed on some design options with your colleagues. 

1. Point your client to GrassRoots MOO and enter using your player name and password (distributed via email)
2. @join Lesley or truna
3. You will need to have decided what you are going to create and which direction to create in. 

 

 
 
 

NB You should have communicated with other participants before this session (use the MOO list) to ensure that you are not going to duplicate something they are already building.

Negotiate a compromise if you find anyone else who wants to make the same thing as you - there's no reason why you should work individually, so feel free to form groups to create your objects. We will help you to get started.
 

4. You must be in the Virtual Brighton Gateway

The MOO command you will need today is the compound @digcommand: 
 

So, to dig to a place called ‘The Fortunes of War’ from Brighton beach, the complete command would be: 

@dig fortune|beach to The Fortunes of War

This command will create a new 'room' for you to build in, complete with a return exit to where you are now. 
You should end up with something like this: 

@dig fortune|beach to The Fortunes of War
The Fortunes of War (#2012) created.
Exit from Brighton Beach (#3689) to The Fortunes of War (#2012) via {"fortune"} created with id #2107.
Exit from The Fortunes of War (#2012) to Brighton Beach (#3689) via {"beach"} created with id #2743.

Type the name of your new exit to enter your empty space.

Your next step is to describe your new 'room'
 

Either command should work (remember, you must be entered with a player name and password. Guests are not usually permitted to do this!) 

You should end up with something like this: 

@describe #2012 as "You are standing at the bar of the famous Brighton beach pub. The juke box is playing country and western and the locals are playing pool. Outside you can see the beach promenade and you can still hear the sound of the waves on the shingle over the noise of "Pour Me Another Tequilla, Shiela" which is playing for the third time since you entered."
Description set

Now page some players and invite them to 'see' your work. 

Session One : Further Reading

• MOOs and Language Learning by Lesley Shield, Markus J. Weininger & Lawrence (Larry) B. Davies
• Introduction to MOO by Lesley Shield and Markus J. Weininger with Markus Kötter 
• The MOO Project by truna aka j.turner and Val Pohio 
• MOOing in a Foreign Language: How, Why & Who by Lonnie Turbee 
• MOO Teacher's Tip Sheet by Tracy Gardner 
• Learn English at SchMOOze University by Yoshi, aka, AWAJI Yoshimasa 

Session Two : Further Reading

• Godzilla Can MOO, Can You? by Lawrence (Larry) B. Davies, Lesley Shield,  & Markus J. Weininger 
• A Walk on the ICE by truna aka j.turner 
• This Old MOO : A Series of Tutorials for Users of Connections by Tari Fanderclai [written for Connections MOO users but generally useable for any MOO] 
• It's Fun to Have Fun But You Have to Know How! or, How Cavorting on the Net Will Save the Academy by Beccy Rickly
• NETEACH-L MOO page by Greg Younger (gregor). The LOGS will be of interest for those of you exploring the possibilities of Distance Education.

Session One : Home Task

You also need to collaborate with the other people in your group to design a space. You can do this collaborative work within the MOO itself by using MOOmail and getting used to the synchronous and asynchronous nature of MOO. 

• What kind of space do you wish to create?
• What might you be able to use such a space for?
• What can you ask students to do in the MOO?

• You might need to do some research into the nature of the real Brighton, UK before we start.
• Go to http://www.brighton.co.uk/
• Or try some searches of your own via your favorite search engine.
• You will need to collaborate with your colleagues and choose a direction and an area to add to the MOO.

Welcome to Virtual Brighton. 
You have just arrived in this famous if somewhat faded English seaaside town. You have just got off the London train and are standing outside the station. The ozone in the air hits you as you look around. The light is bright and the piercing cries of seagulls tell you that the beach is is down the road in front of you to the south. 
Directions [exits] South to the beach, East to the 'Lanes', West to the City Centre, North to the University

Using MOOmail

MOO offers both synchronous (real time) and asynchronous (not real time) tools. This means that you can leave messages for others when they are not logged into the MOO. The easiest way to do this is to use MOOmail, an in-MOO mailing system. 

To find out how to use MOOmail, log into GrassRoots MOO and type <help mail>. It takes a bit of practice to get it right, but it's worth perservering, because it's much more convenient to keep all your MOO-based tasks within the MOO, rather than sending email and - possibly - losing it. 

We have set up an in-MOO mailing list called VPCE for you. When you want to make a general comment to the group, you should send your MOOmail to the list. If you just want to contact a few of your colleagues, simply mail them by MOO name, rather than sending to the list. 

NB We would like you to copy all MOOmail relevant to the VPCE to Lesley and truna so that we can gather research data
(don't worry, all data is confidential and will be anonymised if we refer to it outside the VPCE). 

To cc to us, simply add our names to the list of recipients. 

Session Two : Home Task

Entering MOO spaces : Basic Information & Clients

• Try 'telnetting' to: moo.enabling.org:8888

• Other available mac clients:  http://www.pure-mac.com/mud.html
• Other available Windows clients: ftp://papa.indstate.edu/winsock-l/mud/

If you have a problem using a MOO client because of, for example, firewalls, many MOO spaces have a java based web interface. The MOO we are using for these sessions has a nice one at: http://www.enabling.org/grassroots/java-new/. However, like any large java applet, it can be a little slow. 

Other Language Learning and Interesting MOOs

Spanish
Mundo Hispano, telnet://admiral.umsl.edu:8888

French
MOO Français, telnet://admiral.umsl.edu:7777
Le MOOlin Rouge, telnet://cmc.uib.no:9000

German
Dreistadt, telnet://cmc.uib.no:8888

Community
GrassRoots, telnet://moo.enabling.org:8888, Web Address, http://:www.enabling.org/GrassRoots/

Education and Research
Diversity University, telnet moo.du.org 8888, Web Address, http://www.du.org/