Amy Bruckman
MIT Media Lab E15-315a
20 Ames St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
Tel: 617-253-0379
asb@media.mit.edu
KEY WORDS: collaborative learning, computer networks, MUDs, virtual reality
ABSTRACT
In text-based virtual reality environments on the Internet called
"MUDs," participants meet people from all over the world. They can not
only explore the virtual world, but extend it, creating new objects and
places. MUDs are Constructionist environments in which people build
personally meaningful artifacts. But unlike many Constructionist
environments, MUDs place special emphasis on collaboration, encouraging
construction within a social setting.
This paper presents a case study of the experiences of a 43-year-old building contractor named Jim. It is one of an ongoing series of interviews I have conducted with people who learned to program for the first time in a MUD called MediaMOO. Salient features of their learning experiences include ease of collaboration, availability of technical assistance from peers, playfulness, availability of an audience for completed work, and community spirit. The success of MUDs as a learning environment for adults points to its potential as a learning environment for children.
INTRODUCTION
Jim is a 43-year-old building contractor who lives in the Pacific Northwest of
the United States. He built a "77 Jeep Cherokee." Susan is a thirty-eight
year old professor of agriculture from the South. She built a simulation to
help her students learn to perform certain laboratory procedures. Christopher
is a 23- year-old graduate student in comparative literature in South Africa.
He programmed a poetry generator. Neil is a 30-year-old graduate student in
American cultural studies in the Midwest. He built a "RetroFuturist
Aerodrome" complete with a biplane, a blimp, and a taxi stand for those who
want to catch a ride. Two men named David-a writing teacher from the Western
United States and a graphic designer from the Midwest-each programmed a box of
donuts.
Although they are spread out geographically, they talk to one another daily in a virtual community on the Internet called "MediaMOO."[1] MediaMOO is a text-based multi-user virtual reality environment or "MUD" based on software written by Pavel Curtis of Xerox PARC (Curtis 92). None of these people had ever programmed before they came to MediaMOO. Their accomplishments are diverse, from Susan's elaborate simulation system to David and David's completion of a simple tutorial. However, they were all inspired to try to learn to program by the same factor: a desire to contribute to the community. They were all supported in their efforts by the presence of other people in the virtual world to ask for help. In these worlds on the network, learning is a collaborative, community activity.
This paper will begin by explaining the underlying technology, and then present in depth the case study of Jim, the building contractor mentioned above. In conclusion, it will analyze the potential of these virtual worlds as a learning environment for children.
WHAT IS A MUD?
A MUD is a text-based multi-user virtual-reality environment. As of December
1993, there were 424 publicly announced MUDs based on twenty-one different
kinds of software on the Internet. I will use the term "MUD," which stands
for "Multi-User Dungeon," to refer to all the various kinds.[2] The original
MUDs were adventure games; however, the technology has been adapted to a
variety of purposes.
When a person first logs onto a MUD, he or she creates a character. The person selects the character's name and gender, and writes a description of what the character looks like. It is possible for a character to be male or female, regardless of the gender of the player. In many MUDs, a character can also be neuter or even plural. A plural character could, for example, be called "swarm_of_bees" or "Laurel&Hardy."
MUDs are organized around the metaphor of physical space. You can "talk" to anyone in the same virtual room. When you connect to MediaMOO (our MUD at the Media Lab), you see the description:
>connect guest
Okay,... guest is in use. Logging you in as
`Green_Guest'
*** Connected ***
The LEGO Closet
It's dark in here, and there are little crunchy
plastic things under your feet! Groping around,
you discover what feels like a doorknob on one wall.
Obvious exits: out to The LEGO/Logo Lab
The core of MediaMOO is a virtual representation of the MIT Media Lab. Typing "out" gets you to the "LEGO/Logo Lab," a central work area for the lab's Epistemology and Learning (E&L) research group:
>out
The LEGO/Logo Lab
The LEGO/Logo Lab is a happy jumble of little and
big computers, papers, coffee cups, and stray pieces of LEGO.
Obvious exits: hallway to E&L Hallway, closet to
The LEGO Closet, and sts to STS[3] Centre Lounge
You see a newspaper, a Warhol print, a Sun
SPARCstation IPC, Projects Chalkboard, and Research Directory here.
Amy is here.
>say hi
You say, "hi"
Amy says, "Hi Green_Guest! Welcome!"
The Thin Blue Line arrives and slows to a stop.
The conductor of The Thin Blue Line cries, "Next stop is Ballroom Foyer."
The conductor of The Thin Blue Line cries, "All aboard!"
The Thin Blue Line moves out slowly, gathering
speed as it vanishes into the distance.
In this transcript, a guest connects and speaks with a real person (me). Each person could be anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. Although I live in Boston, there are people in California, England, Austria, and South Africa who are part of my daily life. As Green_Guest and I were talking, a train came through. If Green_Guest were to type "enter train," it would give him/her a tour of interesting places around MediaMOO. The train system was programmed by a MediaMOO user named "Moose"[4] who is a graduate student at Brown University.
The earliest MUDs were written in 1978-1979 and were based on the role- playing game Dungeons and Dragons. In 1989, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University named James Aspnes decided to see what would happen if the monsters and magic swords were removed. He created a new type of MUD, called "TinyMUD," which was not an adventure game. Later versions included a simple programming language. Instead of spending time killing virtual monsters, participants work together to help extend the virtual world. Langdon Winner remarks that "social activity is an ongoing process of world-making" (Winner 86). In MUDs, this is true in a literal sense.
In most MUDs, characters are anonymous. People who become friends can exchange real names and email addresses, but many choose not to. Conventions about when it is acceptable to talk about "real life" vary between communities. In most MUDs, people begin to talk more about real life when they get to know someone better. However, in some communities such as those based on the Dragonriders of Pern series of books by Anne McCaffrey, talking about real life is taboo.
MUDs are increasingly being used for more "serious" purposes. David Van Buren of the California Institute of Technology and Pavel Curtis of Xerox PARC has developed a MUD to enhance professional community among astrophysicists called AstroVR (Curtis and Nichols 93). The MediaMOO project, which I began in fall of 1992, is designed to enhance professional community among media researchers (Bruckman and Resn
WORKSHOP:
"SERIOUS" USES OF MUDS?
DIAC '94
Amy Bruckman (organizer)
MIT Media Lab. 20 Ames St., MIT E15-315a, Cambridge, MA 02139.
E-mail: asb@media.mit.edu
Jon Callas
World Benders, Inc. PO Box 7415, Nashua, NH 03060.
E-mail: jon@worldbenders.com
Pavel Curtis
Xerox PARC. 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304.
E-mail: pavel@PARC.xerox.com
Remy Evard
Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115.
E-mail: remy@ccs.neu.edu
David Van Buren
MS 100-22, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125
E-mail: dave@ipac.caltech.edu
Mitchel Resnick (moderator)
MIT Media Lab. 20 Ames St., MIT E15-312, Cambridge, MA 02139.
E-mail: mres@media.mit.edu
"SERIOUS" USES OF MUDS?
Are MUDs useful for "serious" purposes? Or are they "just games"? Are people
exploring the "serious" uses of MUDs pioneering the future of cyberspace, or
are they having fun and calling it work? Is there a serious side to the
future of cyberspace? Does cyberspace challenge us to redefine the boundaries
between work and play, fantasy and reality?
The term "MUD" stands for "Multi User Dungeon." The origins of MUD technology are firmly in the world of games. In the late 1970s, two independent groups of people decided that text-based adventure games would be more fun if multiple participants could connect over the new Arpanet. Alan Klietz developed "Sceptre of Goth," and Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle developed "MUD1." People from all over the world could join adventuring parties together, slaying monsters and finding treasure.
In 1989, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University named James Aspnes decided to see what would happen if the monsters and magic swords were removed. Since Aspnes simplified existing systems by removing many dungeons and dragons features, he called his new system "TinyMUD." Authors of the MUD servers LPMUD and MUSH included programming languages so that users could extend the world, creating new objects and places.
MUDs have proved to be tremendously popular. As of December 1993, there were 424 publicly announced MUDs based on 23 different kinds of software on the Internet.
MUD social interaction has a number of interesting qualities. For example, MUDs:
* Bring together people with common interests from a wide geographic area
* Support both synchronous and asynchronous communication
* Promote casual collaboration
* Use spatial metaphors to create a context for interaction
In the 1990s, a number of research projects have begun to explore the potential "serious" uses of MUDs. Represented at this workshop are the founders of five such projects: David Van Buren's AstroVR is designed to be a professional community for astrophysicists. Amy Bruckman's MediaMOO is designed to be a professional community for media researchers. Remy Evard's "InfoPark" is a MUD used to coordinate complex activities among members of a work group, the system administration team at Northeastern University. Jon Callas' "Meeting Space" software by his company World Benders is a commercially available product designed to be used for business communications. Pavel Curtis' "Jupiter" system is multimedia MUD software currently used to improve communication among researchers at Xerox PARC.
Are these experiments working? Are people getting "real work" done? This raises the question, what is "real work" anyway? In this workshop we will try to view these experiments critically. Other questions to address include:
* Are "serious" MUDs useful?
* Are "serious" MUDs an efficient use of a person's time?
* Should there be a clear boundary between work and play, or a fluid
mixing?
* How will the addition of audio and/or graphics change the "serious"
uses of MUDs?
* Is there an appropriate role for fantasy and humor in a "serious" system?
* Will the "serious" use of MUDs or MUD-like systems become prevalent in the
future?
THE WORKSHOP
We will begin by devoting ten minutes time to each of these projects. The
founder of a project will introduce the project, highlighting its successes
and failures, and raising issues that have emerged.
In the next thirty minutes, the moderator will lead a general discussion, inviting anyone present to ask questions of specific individuals or the group. Members of each community will be invited to attend the workshop, and will be encouraged to comment on their personal experiences.
In the final ten minutes, the moderator will sum up what he feels to be the important issues that have emerged from this workshop.
WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
AMY BRUCKMAN, MIT MEDIA LAB
Amy Bruckman is a doctoral candidate at the Media Lab at MIT, where she
founded MediaMOO, a text-based virtual reality environment or "MUD" designed
to be a professional community for media researchers. MediaMOO began the
process of becoming a representative democracy in September of 1993. Amy
received her master's degree from the Media Lab's Interactive Cinema Group in
1991. For her dissertation, she is creating a MUD for kids called MOOSE
Crossing. MOOSE Crossing is designed to provide an authentic context for kids
to learn reading, writing, and programming.
JON CALLAS, WORLD BENDERS INC.
Jon Callas is a founder of World Benders, Inc. and the lead architect of their
product, Meeting Space. Meeting Space uses multimedia extensions to MUD-based
technologies for collaborative and concurrent work. His interest in MUDs
stretches back to MUD1, and he wrote a MUD gaming system in 1982. He started
a role-playing MUD in 1990, and has been working on Meeting Space actively
since 1992.
PAVEL CURTIS, XEROX PARC
Pavel Curtis has been a member of the research community at the Xerox Palo
Alto Research Center since 1983, during which time he has worked on
programming environments and on other projects mostly related to the design
and implementation of programming languages. His current work centers on the
Social Virtual Reality project, investigating the implementation,
applications, and implications of systems that allow multiple simultaneous
users to communicate and interact in pseudo-physical surroundings. He is the
founder and chief administrator of LambdaMOO, one of the most popular
recreational social virtual realities on the Internet.
REMY EVARD, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
Remy Evard is the leader of the Experimental Systems Group of the College of
Computer Science at Northeastern University. He has been at Northeastern for a
busy year, during which he changed nearly everything about the network. He
received his M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Oregon in 1992,
and graduated from Andrews University with a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer
Science in 1990. He may be reached as "remy@ccs.neu.edu", or as "r'm" on any
of several MUDs.
MITCHEL RESNICK, MIT MEDIA LAB
Mitchel Resnick is an assistant professor at the MIT Media Laboratory. His
research focuses on the development of computational tools that help people
(particularly children) learn new things in new ways. He is co-developer of
LEGO/Logo (a computer-controlled construction kit) and developer of StarLogo
(the first massively parallel programming language intended for nonexpert
programmers). He is currently exploring (with Amy Bruckman) how virtual
communities might change the ways children learn, play, and think about
themselves.
DAVID VAN BUREN, CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, AND JET PROPULSION LAB
David Van Buren is a staff scientist at the Infrared Processing and
Analysis Center at Caltech where his duties are primarily to develop
on-line tools for planning and conducting astronomical observations
from space. He is currently also working on AstroVR, a MUD-based
service that provides access to many astronomical databases in a
collaborative environment. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy from
the University of California at Berkeley in 1983, has authored a
number of research papers and is the leader of a small research group
on astrophysical hydrodynamics.
REFERENCES
Bruckman, Amy and Mitchel Resnick (1993). "Virtual Professional Community:
Results from the MediaMOO Project." Presented at the Third International
Conference on Cyberspace in Austin, Texas on May 15th, 1993. Available via
anonymous ftp from media.mit.edu in
pub/asb/papers/MediaMOO-3cyberconf.{ps.Z,rtf.Z,txt}
Curtis, Pavel and David Nichols (1993). "MUDs Grow Up: Social Virtual Reality in the Real World." Presented at the Third International Conference on Cyberspace in Austin, Texas on May 15th, 1993. Available via anonymous ftp from parcftp.xerox.com in pub/MOO/papers/MUDsGrowUp. {ps,txt}
Curtis, Pavel (1992). "Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities." Proceedings of DIAC '92. Available via anonymous ftp from parcftp.xerox.com, pub/MOO/papers/DIAC92.{ps, txt}.
Evard, Remy. "Collaborative Networked Communication: MUDs as Systems Tools." Proceedings of LISA VII, Monterey, CA, 1993. Available on World Wide Web as http://www.ccs.neu.edu/USER/remy/documents/cncmast.html, or via anonymous ftp to ftp.ccs.neu.edu:/pub/people/remy/Mud/cncmast.ps.gz