Unfortunately we spent most of class last time trying to find a MOO that was still active that we could actually navigate in and around. We eventually did find one, but by the time we had it half way figured out to the point where we could start doing things with it, class was over. That said, I saw a few interesting pedagogical implications of what we did and how we were doing it.

1. I’m about to start the second unit in my tech writing class which is going to be the technical description. It could be kind of cool to given the students an assignment to provide a technical description of how to actually do something with a MOO. The documentation that Amelia and I were dealing with was helpful, but not super helpful. So that could be an interesting assignment/activity for 421 students.
2. In retrospect, the struggles we went through to figure this thing out are kind of a metaphor for the writing process. (Or learning anything, really.) You struggle, it doesn’t make sense, you think pretty much everyone else is doing it better than you. Then, when you finally think you’ve got it figured out and you’ll be able to start actually doing stuff, time is up and you have to “turn it in.” But the difference was this felt more like a game and less frustrating than the writing process often feels. So why does the writing process feel so much more frustrating? Why can’t we approach it more like a game and have fun with it? Ideas to continue teasing out, I suppose.
3. Honestly, I’m still not sure I totally understand MOOs. I think there is actually a much more direct pedagogical implication into how we use them, and maybe I would have gotten it had we figured things out more quickly and actually gotten into the MOO, but for now I think I’m still on the outside.