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
<1> 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.

<2> 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
<3> 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.

<4> 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.

<5> 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?
<6> 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.

<7> 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."

<8> 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

<9> 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.

<10> 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.

<11> 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.

<12> 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.

<13> 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

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

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