THE MOORING
MOOring Mission:
This is the MOOring mission, as written by the ring's founder:
Welcome to the MOOring. This ring was created on 12 January 1996 by Scott Kapel in the hopes of bringing together information about MOOs, how to use MOOs, MOOs in education, and actual MOO web interfaces.
What is a MOO, do you ask? A MOO is a Multi User Dimension, Object Oriented. Basically, it is a text-based virtual environment where "players" can interact with each other, inluding expressing emotions, performing actions, etc. (not simply speak, as with IRC or other chat devices). Users may also create sophisticated objects which can act and function on their own, or in response to other players, with the powerful object oriented programming language which characterizes MOOs. MOOs are most efficiently accessed via telnet. However, many MOOs have lately created HTML interfaces, giving web browsers a means to enter and interact with the MOO. Telnetting still offers speed and efficiency beyond web interfaces, though, even if telnet does lack some visual appeal.
Because of the power and flexibility of the MOO environment, it has been recognized as a powerful resource for education. Teachers of all subjects can find MOOs useful tools in their padagogies. For example, rather than the history teacher simply describing the great pyramids of Giza, he or she can bring students into a MOO environment, and they can actually build the pyramids and explore them. Or, if the composition teacher wants to explain descriptive language, he or she can avoid a dry lecture and bring students to a MOO, where descriptive language is a necessity in order for players to be adequately understood. Implications for international and distance education are vast with the MOO environment, as well.
The MOOring concentrates on educational MOOs, and pages related to educational MOOing. The MOOring also aims to bring much needed exposure to the educational possibilities of MOOing, an exposure which can be better facilitated by bringing as much MOO information together in one place as possible. In this way, people from project funders to school administrators wishing to investigate the possibilities of MOO can come to the MOOring and easily work through tutorials, explainations, histories, examples of uses of MOO, and actual MOO interfaces without having to exhaustively search all over the web, or compile volumes of hastily scrawled URLs or bookmarks.
Navigating the MOOring is quite easy. To begin, you may jump to a random page. Each member page of the MOOring will have a navigation device similar to the one on the front page, making navigation to the next or previous page a simple task. Because the pages are linked together by the MOOring, the ring user will eventually come back to where he or she started.
Do you have a webpage concerning MOOs, or do you run a MOO with a webpage interface? If so, please join the MOOring.
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