As with LogoWeb, students can create Logo-like animations and simulations, but they can place them directly on the World Wide Web. A major challenge is to facilitate the sharing of objects in Cocoa. Students can clip a behavior from one page and insert it directly into another object. Collaborating on Constructions Computer networks can support a more fundamental change when they enable students not only to share ideas with one another, but to collaborate directly, in real time, on design and construction projects. For example, you can decide to be a purple bird and build yourself a nest, or you can become a munchkin and join others in building a replica of Oz.
MUDs explicitly combine construction and community.
When people build new objects and places on a MUD, there are always other people around to act as users, consultants, advisers, and critics. MarketPlace includes online discussion facilities, designed to support not only economic deal-making among participants but also reflection and analysis of the economic patterns that arise from the interactions. Kimberly found that participants gained insights into core economic ideas such as supply and demand, economies of scale, and externalities. Our research group is currently developing a more general-purpose modeling environment for the Internet, called the Network Clubhouse. The decentralized nature of the Internet makes it particularly well suited for modeling and exploring the workings of decentralized systems.