Ooops, I misunderstood salmon, oh dear….but, misunderstanding makes for good conversations sometimes…

MOO and the classroom, continued
Okay, so I guess I said ‘screw the research’ because I wondered if that was getting in the way myself…we talked about it today after class, that maybe the best way to do what were were trying to do, given the short amount of time we had, is to bring in knowledge from somewhere else and present it in moo…so that the time they spend in the computer lab is actually working on the moo stuff, that kind of thing, and not research as such. So that they’re not absorbing new information and learning about a new medium at the same time. Still…

I guess I’m just pretty mesmerized by the possibilities of building. I admit pretty readily that progging is really amazing…I mean, it changes your whole relationship to the moo, you feel more in control of it than restricted by it…and I agree that that would be a very powerful thing to teach the kids…and I know they could handle it, they could handle player messages, and that was tricky, I know they could easily handle simple programming. And probably even more complex programming at that. I guess it comes down to what we’re DOING bringing students into moospace.

So what are we doing bringing students into moospace?

I think we just hit the point where salmon and I take different but not mutually exclusive sides. As a historian, I’ve been thinking about the medium in terms of representation…in terms of using the medium to say something in particular…really as an alternative to the standard essay. So building is critical to me, and I think it’s a very expressive medium. But, this is also coming from an obsessive builder. I’ve been nothing but a builder for 7 years and been pretty pleased with the results…the generic objects are great, and so easy to subvert and remake…like, one of the triangle students is using rooms as people. I guess I’m really inspired by people using the structure in creative ways…maybe that’s why I’m so keen on the structure in the first place…

But it still comes down to the same question, what are we doing bring students into moo space? What does programming, for instance, bring a student? salmon talks about creation, about making something that acts like it’s living….that’s cool, I admit, I just want to know where that goes, where that leads us…

Now, this is coming from someone who was really reluctant to see moospace as viable for education in the first place. Now, I do see that it has serious potential, but I guess I got sort locked into what it can do and I’m comfy to stay there…

Well, so, in the end, I guess it comes down to what we want students to get out of the experience…what do we want students to get out of the experience?