Collaboration in A MOO
Student collaboration is probably another of those pedagogical strategies we are quite
rightly loath to relinquish. MOOs lend themselves exceedingly well to such activity. As in a
traditional classroom, students can meet to discuss their papers or to share their input on a
group project. In traditional classrooms, collaborative projects are often difficult. Students
consistently complain that they can't meet outside of class, that they couldn't get in touch with
one another, that they don't have enough time to meet. Yet with MOOs, much of these
problems are, if not resolved, greatly lessened. Students can e-mail their materials to one
another before meeting, thus greatly reducing the amount of time necessary to meet. Moreover,
times to meet are expanded since they needn't meet physically at one location. In
addition, students can log those meetings so that they (and you) have a record of suggested
changes or group-determined individual assignments.
Small-group work is also easily managed in a MOO. One nice feature of MOOs is the
ability to have students sit at a table or in separate "rooms" so that conversation is localized to
that group only. Thus, while you may have a class of 35 or so present at the MOO, you can
arrange your class so that student comments are restricted to their own small group. When
necessary, conversation among the entire class can also take place, simply by having students
use the "speak up" command or sitting at the large seminar table. As you recall, I set up five small tables and one large one in my virtual classroom to accommodate small-group work.
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