Synchronous Computer Mediated Communication
In Adult Literacy and Basic Education

Author: Mex Butler






As we saw how the MUD benefited us, we began to ask how MUDs might be useful in our writing classes. The possibilities seemed endless. Students could have contact with people from cultures and subcultures outside their own........ They would get immediate responses to their ideas and to the text objects they created, experiencing dynamically the effects their words have on others.
(Fanderclai, 1995)



MUD is an acronym which stands for Multi-User Domain, a place in cyberspace where a number of people can meet and communicate synchronously in writing. The text that they enter from their keyboard is displayed (almost) simultaneously to the people occupying the same space. In MUDs, people can chat with others from anywhere around the world in "real time".

MOOs are a later development of MUDs. The name MOO is an acronym within an acronym. The M stands for MUD and the OO stands for Object Oriented. This means that textual objects - things made from words - can be programmed to operate within the MOO environment. So even if no one else is logged on when you arrive, the MOO is not empty but offers an exciting range of things to do and places to explore.

This paper examines MOOs as potential teaching/learning environments which can open the doors of the classroom, offering students and teachers the opportunity to meet and talk to people they would never otherwise encounter. It reviews the literature relating to the educational uses of MOOs and raises issues regarding the benefits and difficulties of introducing ALBE students to the MOO environment. And as a hypertextual "paper", it offers the reader direct access to the source documents cited, and provides links to connect directly to a MOO to find out at first hand what they are really like.


MOOS IN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS

MOOing as an eductional activity is probably more widely accepted in the United States at present than anywhere else. This is largely due to the historical factors which saw the development of all aspects of the internet centering on the networks developed between the armed forces and several large American universities during the 1960s.

This is not to say that the use of virtual reality environments is totally accepted within the education system in the USA. There are still far more people who don't know what they are than those who do. However of the hundreds of educational MOOs currently in existence, the vast majority are located in the hard drives of North American university computers.

This is also reflected in the literature relating to their application in teaching and learning contexts. Magazines such as Kairos, Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine, New Technology and Interpersonal Computing and Technology are all based in the United States.

Here is an excerpt from an interview published in Kairos: A Journal For Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments. The interview was carried out in a MOO and it gives a little of the flavour of what MOO conversations look and feel like. Corey Wick from Kairos magazine interviews Tari Vanderclai and Greg Siering about their work on an educational MOO project called Netoric.

Kairos: That's fascinating, interdisciplinary. But if we could, I'd like to move into some administrative issues. So I'm an administrator. What in the hell is MOO?

Tari: Greg, you want to jump back in here? Greg errrs and points around.

Tari laughs. Let's both try this

Tari: MOO stands for MUD, Object Oriented; MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon or Domain, depending on who you ask. The first MUDs were used to let people play dungeon-adventure games together across a network.

Kairos: I'm still the administrator. Thanks. I feel much more informed now. :-\

Tari: like all administrators, you need to wait for a full answer :<) Then people started to modify MUD servers to suit other purposes; socialization at first, and more recently, various educational andprofessional purposes. MOO is one kind of MUD server, originally developed by Steven White.

Greg: Lemme see, where to start? MOOs are often described as being text-based virtual realities. By logging in across the Net to a central computer, we can have real-time conversations like this. But beyond the chat function, MOOs allow users to create textually described worlds, building "rooms" in which we can talk and "objects" that we can interact with.
(Wick, 1995)



This extract demonstrates very nicely a selection of the major features of MOO texts.

This is clearly a dialogue. There is no preordained script. The "speakers" are responding directly to each other, just as in face to face conversation. The content is negotiated and negotiable. Participants can contribute or not as they choose, enter and leave as they choose. They can't be forced to speak, and those with soft voices can be "heard" as clearly as those who shout. (Falsetti, 1995)

One outcome of this is that students who usually have very little to say in class may acquire a new confidence and develop a "voice" in the MOO environment which they are unable to use in the conventional classroom. Problems such as embarassment over race, sex, colour or appearance are non-issues in computer mediated communiction, since the audience can "see" only what the writers chooses to reveal about themselves. (Day and Batson, 1996)

Unlike audible conversation, several people can "speak" at once without interrrupting each other. However this does mean that turns can appear out of order. (Falsetti, 1995) Greg's statement "Where to start" appears after the interviewer has already said thanks for a quicker answer to the same question. This takes some getting used to. The more experienced the MOOer, the more quickly they are likely to respond and the more cross-over of turns is likely to take place. For beginners, this can be very confusing.

Normal para-linguistic features of conversation are absent - body language, facial expression, gesture, tone of voice. To compensate for the absence of these features, the participants write statements descriptive of their actions or suggestive of the feeling tone they wish to convey, as in "Tari smiles" and "Greg errrs and points around". They also use "emoticons", miniature symbolic faces which convey some of the same emotional information. The best known of these is the "smiley face" drawn thus as  :)   representing two eyes and a smiling mouth or  :-)  with a nose included. Kairos uses an individualised version  :-\   suggestive of a lop-sided smile.

Almost all actions are expressed in the present simple tense. The database core of MOO programs are written such that almost everything is percieved to be happening in this tense. This is in some ways strange, since in other conversational contexts, the simple present is used to express habitual behaviours rather than presently occuring actions; so, "I am beating the eggs" for my current actions but "I beat the eggs" to describe my usual procedure. This usage has more in common with narratives, where the simple present is used to create a sense of immediacy. Here, MOOs' origin in Role Playing Games (RPGs) shows its influence. It creates a melding of genres into something a little new and different from all that came before.

Many of the features of casual conversation are transferred into written MOO text. Consequently, it is common to see such expressions as "Lemme see" and "Dunno". These expressions add to the sense of participating in a real conversation, but also add challenges to understanding for less skilled language users and non-native speakers.

Pobega points out that the informal nature of much writing in MOOs excludes many of the more formal genres. One of the very few writers to look specifically at MOOs from an adult literacy practitioner's perspective, he makes the point that "MOOs encourage writing - and that in itself is undoubtedly a good thing". He is concerned that, in enthusiasm for the obviously motivating impact of MOOing on many students' level of writing output, teachers can lose sight of the need to teach across the full spectrum of reading and writing domains.

Viewed from the perspective of ALBE practitioners who must work within the framework of the Certificate of General Education for Adults (CGEA), how do MOOs fit into the curriculum? What possibilities are there for using MOOing as assessable activities that will contribute to the students' acquisition of accredited competencies?


schMOOzING IN THE CGEA - AN ESL/EFL MOO'S POSSIBLITIES

schMOOze University is an ESL/EFL MOO established by Julie Falsetti in 1993 to offer non-native speakers and small, friendly virtual community in which to practice their English language skills. It's size and mission make it a good place for ALBE students to begin their MOO experiences, even if they are native speakers of English.

A MOOing goals analysis developed by Beckingham et al (1995) provides an excellent schematic view of the developmental processes involved in becoming an active participant in a MOO environment. Participants can become involved to varying degrees, depending on their reading, writing, keyboarding, organisational, mathematical and even oracy skills. Starting at the left end of the flow chart, one can move through a series of increasingly challenging activities, requiring increasingly more complex literacy skills in order to complete them.

Simply logging on and having a quick chat to another person provides plenty of opportunities for reading and writing for self expression at the first two levels of the CGEA, where description, narrative and recount are the major genres. Simple MOO programming, the creation of objects and rooms, offers excellent opportunities to expand from basic writing into more complex and sustained writing. Room descriptions vary from just a few words to complex recreations of historical events or whole geographical regions, as in Shield's description of a series of spaces at schMOOze University, recreating the Northumberland village of Bamburgh.

Reading and writing for practical purposes are inescapable aspects of MOOing from the very first encounter. Since the new MOOer has no idea what to do or how to operate, the instinct is to ask for help. This is most commonly in the form of "How do I .....?" at first. Responses generally look something like "type: " for simple questions. More complex matters will often result in the questioner being referred to the on-line help files (see diagram). These vary in content from simple and accessible to highly technical, and may themselves refer out to web-based manuals.

The knowledge domain permates all kinds of MOO activities. From the general knowledge required to explain or understand "Where are you from?" interactions to the formalised expressions encountered in the on-line encyclopedia (Brittanica On-line). Many interesting discussions fo words and their meanings spring up around the Boggle (tm) board, a game programmed in schMOOze University by Yoshi Awaji. This game, based on the well known lettered dice game, is a favourite activity at schMOOze U and can be played competitively with other students or slowly and quietly on ones own. There is a "robot" programmed to play if there are no other people around.

Public debate is an inescapable element of MOO life. Meeting people from all over the world, students are certain to encounter view-points and values vastly different from their own. Books and theses have been written about conflict resolution in virtual space, and negotiation of common ground and clarification of individual rights and obligations are everyday matters. MOOs have their own rules of appropriate conduct which vary from place to place, so a priority in bringing students to visit a MOO is to have them read the "help manners" files and clarify the parameters for acceptable behaviour.

Current events are a frequent topic of discussion too. The recent air pollution crisis in Malaysia and Indonesia was an everyday topic of discussion at schMOOze U, since a number of the regular participants live in that area, and their lives were being directly affected by the disaster. To read about such events in the newspaper is one thing, but to talk to someone who is there and experiencing it has a completely different impact on students.

The General Curriculumm Options stream of the CGEA is ideally suited to MOO activities. Perhaps the greatest area for extension of writing, reading and organisational activities in MOOspace comes through its capacity for collaborative projects. Teachers and students alike find people with mutual interests with whom to form working alliances. Meetings in MOOspace are easily recorded through logging the sessions. All members contributions can be "heard" and talking at the same time has none of the drawbacks experienced in face to face meetings. Simply by being there, students are using technology. Planning and organising activities is an essential part of normal MOO life, simply in order to be sure to catch up with people at remote locations. the internal mail system, similar to emailing, assists this process as well as promoting familiarity with the developing email text genre. Daly's (1996) article on the peculiarities of email as a new form raises interesting points about the importance of making these features explicit to ALBE students, and MOOmail provides a practical venue for the application of these skills.



THE FUTURE OF COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION IN ALBE


If we as language teachers are not careful we will soon find ourselves officially numbered among the partially literate in our own society.
(Reid, 1997)



The impact of the electronic information technologies can be felt at all levels of education in Australia, and nowhere more strongly than in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector, where many adult literacy providers are situated.

The Office of Training and Further Education (OTFE), in a recent publication "OTFE Multimedia Strategy", states:

The prime rationale for the use of technology in vocational education and training is to increase the capacity of the State Training System to provide accessible, client-focussed education and training and to facilitate and support effective teaching and learning.

The introduction of new technology in VET is not an end in itself - technology offers another educational tool which, with appropriate use, may assist in the achievement of a threefold set of outcomes:

  • Improved learning outcomes through creative applications of technology in teaching/learning transactions;

  • Greater access to and participation in training through more flexible delivery options;

  • Familiarisation with and practice in the applications of information technology required in vocational settings. (OTFE 1996a)

A major project in the achievement of these goals will be the establishment of a "virtual VET campus" which will provide opportunities for students and teachers from all over Victoria to communicate via computers in new and innovative ways.

The virtual VET campus project aims to develop both synchronous and asynchronous facilities for teachers and students - a " 'one stop' interface to on-line training provision." (OTFE 1996b).

Still closer to the ALBE "chalkface" is the New Technology Implementation Plan for Adult and Community Education Victoria 1997 - 1999. This program aims to increase adult learners' access to new learning technologies through a three stage approach - development of infrastructure, accessing the necessary hardware and software and professional development of the service providers.


CONCLUSION

It is clear that from the policy makers' end of the spectrum, great things are planned and parts of these plans are already underway. In the ALBE sector, things are already happening. Not only do some providers have individual computers and small networks with internet access, but in-service training sessions are happening where teachers are sharing their expertise with their colleagues and developing collaborative projects. Mailing lists for sharing knowledge and questions link people in geographically removed sites and make dissemination of information quick, easy and relevant.

Through utilization of real-time computer mediated communication, much more frequent and detailed planning of joint projects becomes possible. Teachers and students can share in a learning experience which breaks down barriers rather than emphasising them and opens up the possibility for the students to be the directors of their own learning experiences to a far greater extent than has been possible before.



GLOSSARY:

  1. Cyberspace: The on-line world of computer networks. This term is used loosely to refer to anything that happens on the internet.

  2. Virtual reality is defined by the WWWebster Dictionary as: an artificial environment which is experienced through sensory stimuli (as sights and sounds) provided by a computer and in which one's actions partially determine what happens in the environment.

  3. MUDs: Multi-User Domain/Dungeon. The earliest kind of text-based virtual reality. Developed by university students during the wee hours of the morning when they could wrangle a bit of computer access time in the days when computers occupied a whole room and everything was fed in by punch cards.

  4. MOOs: For the purposes of this paper, I use the term MOO to refer to MUDs and MOOs.


REFERENCES





Email Mex Butler at carlrw@vicnet.net.au.