Technically, MUD stands for Multi-User Domain, an internet space that allows multiple users to communicate synchronously, a bit like a chat room. But the OO stands for Object Oriented, which adds dimensions to a MUD or MOO that extend simple chat into a richly textured, active learning environment. While chat rooms simply facilitate conversation, simple Object Oriented programming within a MUD or MOO allows instructors and students to co-create a world of their own, constructed entirely of words. In the past, freshmen composition students at the Penn State Lehigh Valley campus have extended their conversations in MOOs to include their Japanese counterparts who were studying English in Hawaii. The experience broadened their perspectives not only about the common texts they were discussing, but also about themselves and about each other.
Similar exchanges take place on-line in educational MUDs and MOOs every day.
As with any instructional situation, the teacher's role in a MOO varies depending on her goals and personal style. For a brainstorming session between students at two campuses, for instance, the teacher's role is basically to design and post an effectively crafted prompt, stand back, and facilitate the rich discussion that students will produce all on their own. Brainstorming sessions often yield the most productive ideas, rough-cut gemstones on the pixellated page, waiting to be mined, refined, by student writers. However, if the instructor's goal is to ask students to provide focused feedback to one another, say, in the form of peer response to each others' first drafts of a writing assignment, then the instructor's role will necessarily change to reflect that goal. Because the instructional goals are so different, focused feedback cannot thrive in the same creative, often chaotic, environment that surrounds a brainstorming session.