Looking for assoc. wizards

• Messages sorted by:[ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]

Hello;  


I'm in the neighbourhood to solicit some associate and mentoring
wizards for two MOO projects that will be continuing for the next 2-3
years.  I'll make this rather lengthy request in 3 parts: who we need,
who we are, and what we're doing. That way you may edit yourself out of
the picture at any point along the path if you feel it no longer
applies to you.


Thanks in advance for your interest.


Many of you have been gracious enough to help me out over the past 2
years as I battled with bits of moo-speak, but now I need to get
active.  I'm looking for at least two associate wizards who are willing
to spend 1-2 hours a week minimum helping with MOOoise and HolonMOO,
and I'm also looking for 2-3 mentor wizards who will commit to putting
up with well thought out and still moronic questions such as "How come
I can e-mail new user names and passwords to any place on the net
except to our sister machine?"  This is nothing new to what goes on
Moo-Cows, except that you would be on file as part of the project, and
I wouldn't feel like I was 'bothering' you with the questions. Also, 
assoc. wizards would be directed to contact you directly for whatever
reason.  People interested in generic mooology, Java interface and
designing learning environments would probably find the project most
interesting.  The main page for this is
http://noisey.oise.utoronto.ca/moooise.html


If my funding proposals go as planned, there would be minor honorariums
all around with more for intensive or special contracted sub-projects. 
It probably would not be more then $1k for the life of the project
though ;-(  You will also get a cool t-shirt out of the deal.  C. Regis
Wilson can attest to the coolness of the T, eh?  I'm getting no money
myself for this project either ;-(


We are at this point, basically me: M.A. medievial religious poetry,
Ph.D. candidate in Transformative and Holistic Learning (stop laughing)
at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of
Toronto, and an RS/K6 that I've got control over... so no worries about
loosing the server cause an admin type doesn't like it.  My
dissertation project (to be hosted on HolonMOO) is entitled "Delinking
learning from schooling: student bioregional narratives in virtual
environments" or something like that... I've not looked recently. 
HolonMOO is nothing more than about 150 pages of papers, and a virginal
up-to-date LambdaCore and server.  IT works, and it is vacant.  It will
house about 200 students from Toronto, and cities in Alberta, Iceland
and Japan who will convert bio-regional narratives into virtual
spaces... blaa, blaa, blaa. I've got all that on file at
http://noisey.oise.utoronto.ca/holon.html


Everything is happening on MOOoise.  At a distance, I have about 10
graduate students who are involved and use MOOoise for bits of
research, and for learning about MOOs, but little is going on aside
from a weekly meetings of a group of songwriters.  Things have been
picking up a lot since August, and I expect that we'll see continuous
use of MOOoise by a dozen or so, with about 100 casual users this term.
 I've contracted with University of Toronto High school to arrange for
a half-dozen students to help with things as well, building spaces and
hosting visitors.


HOWEVER, the big things with MOOoise are the interface and tutorial. 
Presently, we have MOOca Java applet that is stable on most OS, and
some Javascript tutorials underway @describe, @move & @build that pass
data to the MOO through the applet using live connect (if my memory
serves me). THis will all be moved over to HolonMOO as they pass the
test on MOOoise. We would welcome anyone interested in working with
Dave the Javophile or me the Javascriptorium Brother.


So, if you're interested and willing to help out... I'd like to know
the following:


- Name

- Snail Address

- phone number

- e-mail and URL

- MOOs on which you've worked along with a reference or two of wizards
who are running MOOs (so that I can check to see if you're a Moo-ocidal
db killer ;-)

- the capacity to which you would be willing or interested in
participating

- any individual quirks or whatever that you think we should know
about.


Thanks again to all who've helped out in the past and have unofficially
offered to help in the future... now I'm looking for a committed soul
or two with less of a social life than I have.


Jason


This is a recent funding proposal outline of my
work...<fontfamily><param>Times</param><bigger>

I propose to study an emerging form of Educational Computer-mediated
Communication commonly referred to as MOOs. A MOO is a form of
text-based multi-user virtual reality software. This interactive
environment allows multiple users to program and develop models of
people, places and things, and share them with others across the
Internet. The software offers students the potential for a rich and
dynamic learning environment. The educational use of MOOs
(SchoolNetMOO, MIT's Moose-Crossing and MediaMOO) is growing. Although
there have been studies of on-line learning, there has been no
educational research into MOOs (Harasim et al., 1995; Mason, 1992).
MOOs need to be assessed for their educational potential.

 In this study, I will design, set up and run a version of Xerox's
LambdaMOO software that I will call HolonMOO, and conduct research with
classes in Toronto, and cities in Alberta, Iceland and Japan. Students
will work with classroom and on-line curriculum to develop virtual
models of real life or imagined places based on the writing component
of this project. The classroom exercises will consist of writing
journal and peer-edited narratives based on exercises intended to help
students identify important elements of their lives and community.
Students will be provided with a suite of Web pages under development
at OISE/UT. These pages contain reference and technical learning
materials to help the students develop virtual spaces and learn how to
interact with other students on-line. Reference materials will cover
concepts like how to connect to the MOO, on-line etiquette, and how to
move about the MOO. Students will learn how to communicate with others
using mail, news, paging, speaking, whispering and emoting commands,
and how to build, describe, and program rooms and objects. There will
also be curriculum materials to facilitate the integration of the MOO
with the classroom.

MOOs promote collaborative and constructivist learning. The environment
is designed to allow users to build objects, such as rooms, buildings,
cities, mountains, or even physics experiments or virtual
representations of a local ecosystem. A MOO can be a social space or a
virtual exploration of a work of fiction. MOOs offer a unique
educational resource for the development, sharing and communicating
within student developed virtual narrative spaces. This sharing takes
the form of peer-peer teaching and collaborative work on school. MOOs
can help students in "making connections between mind and body; self
and environment; subject areas; logical and intuitive thinking" to help
expand student notions of what it means to communicate (Miller et al.,
1990).

I am requesting funds to study the HolonMOO environment's potential for
developing a learning community, and skills in programming, writing and
communication. In HolonMOO, students will design, program and present
artifacts, interact with other students from around the world, critique
each other's work as well as share and explore virtual experiences.
HolonMOO will model a student-centered learning alternative to
classroom-based learning as well as provide a foundation for assessing
the value of this type of learning environment. This project will build
on my ongoing work in collaborative learning (Hidi et al., 1996) and
curriculum development (Nolan, 1996). Resources have been provided by
IBM, Netscape, and OISE/UT.

The first of three phases of this project is the development of
curriculum, HolonMOO, related Internet software over a 12-month period.
This phase is underway, with the assistance of students at OISE/UT. The
second phase will be 10-months of pilot testing with Toronto students,
revising curriculum, software and research design, and conducting
workshops to prepare the classroom teachers. The final phase begins
with a 3-month period to allow students to become familiar with
HolonMOO. Data will be gathered over a 5-month period, and the analysis
of the data and the writing of the research report will take 6 months.

The analysis of the project will be conducted using qualitative inquiry
(Eisner, 1991) and on-line quantitative research techniques (Reil &
Harasim, in press) to assess social and knowledge gains. Qualitative
inquiry will consider the social elements of learning using
ethnographic tools to generate thick descriptions of what is going on.
An analysis of dynamic and static aspects of the learning environment
using qualitative techniques will help determine cognitive gains, as
well as a baseline model of student interaction with and in the virtual
environment. 

Quantitative factors that will be considered according to student,
class, age group and gender variables include the frequency and
duration of connections, time spent in the construction and exploration
of narrative spaces and in communication. Resulting statistics will
build a picture of student engagement in the learning environment
(Mason, 1992). How students assist each other, how they share
information, organize themselves, and initiate interactions will be
analyzed (Rice, 1990). 

There are technical, social and pedagogical questions to be answered by
this project. Does the social and collaborative nature of MOOs
encourage female students to work with computers? Does the telling of
personal stories give students a sense of place, empowerment, and
control over their own learning? Does the use of MOOs strengthen
students' ability to present organized and sophisticated ideas? Are
MOOs useful tools for learning? Are there indications that learning
community forms in MOOs?  This research will make an assessment of to
what extent MOOs offer a collaborative learning environment for
students' cognitive and affective development.<bigger>

</bigger></bigger></fontfamily>



Jason Nolan     

     

Department of Curriculum Teaching and Learning

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

University of Toronto

MooOISE & Mooca Java, Holistic Learning Conference,

and Towards an Ecozoic Curriculum sites at: 

http://noisey.oise.utoronto.ca