MOO: The Collaborative Website as Learning Environment John Gruber-Miller Cornell College
Coe-Cornell Technology Workshop, June 1-4, 1999

TECHNOLOGIES FOR COLLABORATION

• Why Collaborate?
• Four Modes of Technology, frames 3-7
• Classical Mythology
• Comments of Mythology students, esp. comments by Emily, Gillian, and Shannon.

• Comparing On-Line Learning Resources: Virtual Worlds
• Sample Classroom Activities
• Daniel Anderson and Joi Lynne Chevalier, Collaborative Spaces and Education (requires frames-capable browser)
• MUDs in Education: New Environments, New Pedagogies, by Tari Lin Fanderclai

1. VRoma is collection of Internet resources, including texts, commentaries, images, maps, and other materials. These resources are extendable and customizable for a variety of reading levels and curricula.

• VRoma Home Page
• Women in Antiquity
• Comments of VRomans

2. As an on-line virtual space, VRoma contextualizes and situates linguistic and cultural information within a simulated space, a virtual "city" containing historical places (a simulation of the city of Rome circa 150 CE) and non-historical places (simulations of various types of spaces that imaginatively evoke ancient life). It is a place where can students can visit and take tours of the ancient city or where they can participate in building projects in special Project Rooms set up for specific courses.

• Comments of VRomans
• VRoma Web Gateway
• VRoma Treasure Hunt
• Pompeii: Roman Culture and Society
• Significance of Multimedia Technology

3. As an on-line "place," VRoma is a place where students and teachers can interact both synchronously and asynchronously. Students can have discussions, role play, or re-enact historical events. They can respond to the people, places, and artifacts of the ancient world through discussion with their fellow time-travelers.

• Rome in Film, Fiction, Fact, and Cyberspace, esp. Assignments 1 and 3
• Beginning Latin II, esp. the on-line version of Clue.
• VRoma: Technology and the Standards for Classical Language Learning for an evaluation of how two different Latin courses used VRoma.
• On-Line Talk and Role-Playing for Rhetoric of Epic Narrative, a course at University of Texas by Joi Chevalier. Click on MU*s, then First Step in Teaching with MU*s (bottom frame).

4. Most importantly, VRoma is a community of teachers and learners. The project brings people together--pre-college and college, faculty and students--to collaborate for entire courses or specific projects. It also includes teacher training (through summer workshops) and community building (through follow-up mentoring and ongoing reflective conversation).

• Comments of VRomans
• Plautus, Aulularia
• Aulularia Collaborative Course Assessment Plan
• Circus Maximus Project; quote from its creator
• Role of Community in Educational Technology

GETTING STARTED ON A MOO

• VRoma Help Files, including an introduction to the VRoma MOO and basic MOO commands.
• VRoma Course Materials Repository, actual assignments ready to use
• Welcome to LinguaMOO: an introduction to one of the best Educational MOOs, plus instructions for how to log on as a guest
• Leslie Harris' Composition in Cyberspace
• Clinton Gardner's Teaching Writing Resources
• Lonnie Turbee's MundoHispano website
• MUDs, MOOs, MUSHs
• TECFA: Educational VR Page with links to LOTS of educational VR resources
• Cynthia Haynes and Jan Rune Holmevik, MOOniversity: A Students Guide to Online Learning Environments (Allyn and Bacon 2000)
• Cynthia Haynes and Jan Rune Holmevik, eds. High Wired: On the Design, Use, and Theory of Educational MOOs (Michigan 1998)
• Special issue of Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments on MOOs

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS

1. The combination of information and communication technology within a virtual space reaches more students and their various learning styles than a traditional classroom presentation alone. See VRoma Pedagogical Objectives.

2. Tremendous potential of computers, particularly internet technology, to improve educational practice in the direction of more project-based, student-centered learning.

3. Collaboration is more likely to be the norm. Knowledge is more likely identified with community. And cognitive skills to produce consensus in a collaborative process of knowledge-building become valued.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Barbara McManus, VRoma Project Assessment Director

Barbette Spaeth, Tulane University

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