Here's an idea that I'm hoping to make part of the Computers and Writing 2011 Online Conference. I'd like to go back and look at some of the early TechRhet IRC and MOO conversations from the early 1990s and highlight some of the discoveries we thought we were making at the time, then have a conversation about what's changed since then, in terms of software, assumptions about how teachers collaborate and communicate, and whether synchronous writing environments have any value for writing classes in 2011. For starters, I'll offer a couple of very dated links to what we were thinking about this in the mid 90s: The Network-Based Writing Classroom: The ENFI Idea Pedagogies in Virtual Spaces: Writing Classes in the MOO That's enough for now, but let me also add a link to our first MOO playground, MediaMOO, which, until the old Dell under my desk finally quits, is still available as a kind of MOOseum for exploration. This is where Tari Fanderclai and Greg Siering started the original Tuesday Cafe. You can still get there by pointing your MOO client (free downloads of Pueblo for Windows and Atlantis for Mac are still out there!) at mediamoo.engl.niu.edu port 8888 So, is anyone else interested in this idea? Michael
|
|||
The Stacks @ Interversity |
subscribeNavigationUser login |
|
|
This site is available to Interversity subscribers.  |
Sounds like fun!
I can't wait to see the old logs. I wonder if it will resemble my current home project: digitizing my vinyl recordings. I've got about 400 or more LPs, mostly from the 60s and 70s. I've converted about 250 so far, and it's been a great journey -- rediscovering favorites, sometimes, and other times going, "What was I THINKING? This sucks!" Probably our old conversations have some of both -- wit & wisdom along with jokes that seemed funny at the time or claims we would no longer make. What fun it will be to see what we said!
Synchronous Synergy and Publication
It would be interesting to see how many of the ideas explored in the MOO discussions made it out into the world in other forms-- and how many didn't. As I recall, you wrote an article that addressed the synergy and collaboration generated by synchronous discussion. I wonder the extent to which conventional forms of publishing shut down some of the interesting conversations by stopping synergy-- which is part of the argument that the MOO offers something unique.
I don't think any of the newer technologies have fully replaced the MOO in terms of the combination of being a blend of synchronous and asynchronous communication as well as spatial metaphors. Second Life has a much different dynamic (and has a steeper learning curve when it comes to building and programming spaces) than the old text MOOs do. Though, perhaps my main issue with SL is that it can be expensive if one wants to have an island and actually build much or have a space for a class to meet. Come to think of it, do TechRhet folks have any meetings there? The MOO was easier to adapt to because of the group of people to interact with.
Susan
More MOO Articles
Here is a list of MOO articles I collected while working on my dissertation. It's not an exhaustive list, but it's a good start, and it's what I could find at the time. (Several of these, I notice, are part of the Pedagogies in Virtual Spaces: Writing Classes in the MOO coverweb from Kairos 1.2 that you listed above.)
There are also some logs on the old TechRhet yahoo group. A couple of the TechnoSpirituality ones are archived there.
Also, MediaMoo can be accessed via the web through Mud Connector's Java client, for those who don't want to download client software.
http://www.mudconnect.com/fmud/?host=mediamoo.media.mit.edu&port=8888
Susan
__________________________________________________________
Barber, John and Grigar, Dene, eds. New Worlds, New Words: Exploring Pathways for Writing about and in Electronic Environments. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 2001.
Day, Michael. "Fear and Loathing in Paradise: Dissensus, Discontent, and
Discouragement on the MOO." Kairos 2.1. 1996.
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/1.2/coverweb/dis.html
English, Joel. "MOO-based Metacognition." Kairos 3.1. Fall 1996.
http://www.bsu.edu/classes/english/k3.1/moo.html
Fanderclai, Tari. MUDs in Education: New Environments, New Pedagogies. Computer Mediated Communication. 1 January 1995.
http://metalab.unc.edu/cmc/mag/1995/jan/fanderclai.html
_____. "Like Magic, Only Real." Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyberspace. Ed. Lynn Cherny and Elizabeth Reba Weise. Seal Press, 1996.
http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~tari/magic.html
Harris, Leslie. "Using MOOs to Teach Composition and Literature."
Kairos 2.1. Summer 1996.
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/1.2/coverweb/Harris/contents.htm
Holmevik, Jan Rune and Haynes, Cynthia. MOOniversity. Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, 2000.
_____, eds. High Wired: On the Design, Use, and Theory of Educational
MOOs. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998.
Johnson, Cynthia. "A Few Cool Ways You Too Can Use MOOs." Kairos 7.2. Summer 2002. http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/7.2/binder.html?sectiontwo/johnson/main.htm
Lasarenko, Jane. "So You Wanna MOO." Kairos 2.1. Summer 1996. http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/1.2/coverweb/Lasarenko/MOO1.htm
McKinzie, Matthew. "Using the MOO as an Avenue of Critical Thought."
Kairos 1.3. Fall 1996. http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/1.3/binder2.html?coverweb/McKinzie/MOOthou...
Menges, Joyce. "Feeling Between the Lines." Oct. 1996. CMC http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1996/oct/menges.html
Oren, Avigail. "MOOing is More than Writing." Kairos 2.1. Summer 1996.
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/1.2/coverweb/avigail.html
First +MBU IRC session, December 18, 1991
Here's something that will amuse you, Eric. I think that this is the transcript of our first chat with David Sewell, who used to be a regular on Megabyte University. Note the appreciation for Trent Batson's work, as well as my floundering toward my first TT job. Note also what passed for a lot of memory then (Megabytes, and what we either humorously or accidentally called a "gigglebyte"!
& 318
From dsew@uhura.cc.rochester.edu Wed Jan 8 12:55:47 1992
Received: by garnet.berkeley.edu (5.57/1.33.2)
id AA05529; Wed, 8 Jan 92 12:55:32 -0800
Received: from troi.cc.rochester.edu by uhura.cc.rochester.edu (4.1/1.16) id AA1
4192; Wed, 8 Jan 92 15:54:36 EST
From: David Sewell
Message-Id: <9201082054.AA14192@uhura.cc.rochester.edu>
Subject: Re: irc
To: mday@garnet.berkeley.edu (Michael J. Day)
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 92 15:54:36 EST
In-Reply-To: <9201070507.AA00135@garnet.berkeley.edu>; from "Michael J. Day" at
Jan 6, 92 9:07 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Status: R
Michael--here's the transcript, warts (most) removed.
David
=====
TRANSCRIPT OF MBU TRIAL IRC CONFERENCE, 12/18/91
mday=Michael Day dsew=David Sewell R410,eric,ec=Eric Crump
---------------
[opening line or two were not saved]
Yeah, criticizing the fact that students on WP just tend to accumulate
inste
How do I get it not to cut off the end of the line? Did I hit return?
*** R410 has joined channel +mbu
I think you must have. or did it do it despite you?
*** R410 is LCERIC@umcvmb.missouri.edu (Eric Crump) on channel *private*
*** on channels: +mbu
*** on irc via server mips.mitek.com (OpenConnect Systems Server, Dallas, (2.6.2
b))
Eric, is that you as "R410"?
Let's try a mssg that goes longer than a line again does this work?
Michael, your last was fine.
I guess so. AT least, I don't know for sure.
msg helooo. Am I getting through here?
Yup. You can change your nickname with the /NICK command, e.g. /NICK D_S
ewell
MSG putting in garbage characters to checksldfjdlkgaslkchklsdgkglglglhjfj
dfjd
*** R410 is now known as eric
Hi Eric!
Michael, your garbage characters came through!
*** eric is now known as ec
Eric, are you using the IRC program? Michael had to use telnet, hence th
e experimentation.
had to change my nickname. got sternly warned that some other eric already
laid claim to the title.
Good, looks like I just can't hit return
I believe IRC accepts messages up to 512 characters.
Wow, stern warning mssg?
yes, as it happens i finaally found irc. it was in a place I hadn't looked
. sort of like an easter egg
Nice analogy, the easter egg.
Eric, you're on a VMS system, right?
but we use cms operating system on an ibm mainframe, so I don't have a nice
interface with windows and boxes and whatnot. rats.
Neither do I.
i think its actually vm/cms, whatever that means
Hm. I discovered it's possible to install IRC on one's own Unix account
but you need 1 or 2 megs of disk space.
MSG Who else are we expecting?
zoiks. that's a lot. I think I have 3 megs on this account total.
Natalie Maynor said she'd try...
...also Webster Newbold, and someone from Germany I didn't know (at 3 a.m
. his time!).
have you guys ever joined any of the commercial nets: compuserve, genie, pr
odigy etc?
I don't even know how many Megs I have. Must be a lot because I have mon
ths of purtopoi and MBU archived here
I'm on Compuserve, which is useful for product support, but expensive.
if you have months of mbu archived you must have a gigglebyte or something
I am on Comserve, that's only partly commercial. I think I paid $25 to b
e an associate
--Have either of you used InterChange or a similar real-time conversation
program in classes?
ever used the chat areas? we recently subbed to america online. one of the
cheapies.
the chat sessions, some of them, are mighty wild. got a taste of what an In
terchange session might be like with 30 ornery freshpeo
I've found a group of 4 about the maximum for keeping real topic threads
(we're chaotic enough with 3).
I've never used Interchange. Have only seen transcripts put together by Gai
l, Web, Elaine Dodson.
DodMSG what are chat areas? Have used Interchange only experimentally.
Am try to get the Workstation support people to let us put it on the server.
I am gung ho to get it going here.
by chat areas, I mean things like this here. real time over global nets.
Gave a talk at EDCUEDUCOM on ENFI this fall
You gave a talk, Michael?
yeah that was a good talk, michael. at least from what I could tell by the
text. wish I coulda been there
Yeah, the day after Trend Batson's I cham
i'm pretty gung to get some realtime conferencing started here, too. wish w
e had a few machines to work with.
All the "chat areas" I've seen--most of IRC and CompuServe's CB Simulator
--are really lightweight. Compared to InterChange, which produces real writing
sometimes. I wonder if the lack of a "record" you can scroll with most "chats"
is a probleM?
how was Trent's talk.
Yeah, DAvid, I think you're right. These things tend to produce inane gibbe
rish except when brillian guys like us are using them.
It was pretty good, though general. I li
ke his style. I am trying to get a job at Gall
This is very difficult to control W/O some formatting!
One problem with IRC, I'm realizing even as I type, is that I can see onl
y one 80-character line on screen at a time. Whereas with InterChange your writ
ing takes on shape & body.
Keep getting Mssgs truncated when yours come in.
Michael, the "eris" machine at Berkeley has IRC--would that help you at a
ll?
I agree. I've never met Trent save electronically, but his enthusiasm is ca
tching
I've never heard of the eris machine... Any clues?
I'm just looking at a list of currently-logged-on users from Berkeley, an
d several are on eris.
Do you think I could telnet to eris? Perhaps I'll ask the consulting peo
ple.
But they seem to have something against irc...
At some universities an account on one machine allows access to others; y
ou could try.
I think what we have here is a classic tug-of-war between resource admini
strators & users, like librarians who wish the kids wouldn't keep checking out a
ll the books!
Well, I'll ask. Anybody know of any good C & W jobs coming up?
Besides Austin?
Yeah, I think I applied there. John Slatin's place, right?
-> *ec* Eric, this should show up as a private message to you.
Eric, still there?
Northern Arizona is looking for a WP administrator.
What's PING?
Ping is an arcane network function. Did that show up?
YeMSG Yes, I am getting PING Quit: PINg timeout
test
Hmm... maybe something's going wrong. Eric left w/out a goodbye.
You're still coming through.
did you see my test
Yes.
did you see the PING message I got with QUIT in it?
No.
You may be getting messages IRC would filter out.
Well, then we are still OK. Didn't know about the N. Arizona Job. Is it
listed somewhere?
It was in October MLA list.
Where are your best prospects?
Hmm... that's the list I've been using. Maybe I felt I'd be underqualifi
ed...
Can't really say. I got into it a bit late. Helen Schwartz has
OOPs Helen has been kind about the Indiana Purdue job even tho I am so la
te.
Is leaving California going to be tough? It has been for me (San Diego -
Rochester)
So I think I won't get any "formal" interviews at MLA. Yes, leaving Cal
will be tough, esp since my wife has a job w/in the Asian Community here.
Are there comp interviews at CCCC also?
dumb question...
Yeah, there are. I did the whole thing 10 years ago when I finished my M
A.
I got into C&W partly to provide another area of expertise for possible j
ob-switching, but I'm not expert enough yet to really use it (no publications th
ere, anyway).
Me too. Instructional TEchnology approached me to work with them since t
hey had heard about my software, Stylex, which I invented for my classes.
What is Stylex?
Are you familiar w/ Joe Wms text, Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace
?
Yes.
Well, about three years back Joe aksed me to help computerize some of the
exercises from the book. Stylex is just a fancy way to do the sentence revisio
n exercises, with lots of help windows.
Lanham did something like that with Revising Prose, I think.
I haven't seen a program for Revising Prose, only the video, which I regu
alrly show my classes.
Lanham's was a mainframe-only I believe, not marketed.
...I'm going to have to sign off soon.
Now I think I remember what you're talking about, tho I can't remember th
e name. I keep after him to show it to me, but to no avail. That man is busy!
Yeah, I have to sign off too. been nice chatting. Bye!
Okay, bye. Don't know if it will catch on as an MBU tradition, but it wa
s worth a try. -oo-
oh, try "Join +hottub" if you want to see real chaos!
Glad we did it. Will you report to the group?
OK
I'll post a note, but people are probably gone till after the 1st now. -
-remember QUIT to quit. Bye.
Bye
IRC Log ended *** Wed Dec 18 22:40