From: Barry Kort Subject: MicroMuse at MIT To: ednet@noc1.oit.umass.edu Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 10:23:30 -0400 (EDT) Cc: bkort@musenet.org (Barry Kort) Greetings, EdNetters. Here is the second installment of my story about innovation in educational technology... About 5 years ago, while exploring the Internet for fresh ideas in education, I stumbled onto a few of the then-popular MUDs which had been set up by college students around the US. A small number of gifted computer science students had created these synthetic online virtual worlds out of software dating back some 20 years to the original Adventure game of Will Crowther and Don Woods. I knew enough about computer software and networking to realize that the developers of the Internet MUDs had achieved a major technological breakthrough. But what was it good for? Was this another 'parlor toy' that had no long-term significance? Or was this the foundation of a new era in network communications technology? Mindful of the history of Telephony, I decided to find out for myself. The existing MUDs were purely social, with a fair amount of rude behavior, and a tantalizing element of genuinely creative construction going on in the background. Here were AI robots who could hold their own in a conversation. Here were a handful of creative builders crafting elegant artifices out of raw bits. I was intrigued. Now one of the interesting features of MUDs is that each participant adopts a persona -- an identity or 'avatar' -- which embodies your presence in the virtual world. This is a simulation model in which you are present as a member of the simulated world. I adopted the persona of 'Moulton' -- an itinerant scientist wandering the MUDs with a small bag of science toys, games, and puzzles, just like my real life role at the Museum of Science. Except that online I had to program replicas of the artifacts I used in real life. I began to meet people and to entertain them with my bag of tricks. This was fun, and the people I met were both fascinating to me and fascinated by what I had to offer. Everyone was learning, and having fun at the same time. I met a senior in Electrical Engineering on one of these systems. He was especially impressed with the character of Moulton the Schmeggegy Scientist, and he invited me to help him start a new MUD site on the Sun workstation which he tended at Cal State Fresno. Stan Lim was an enterprising student from Malaysia who had adopted the online character of Jin, the Builder of Majickal Worlds. He was building MicroMush on his Sun machine at Cal State Fresno, and I had been recruited to help him and others craft this world. The theme was to be a 24th Century space-faring community in Earth orbit. Early on, we agreed to build our synthetic world -- Cyberion City -- with as much fidelity to scientific accuracy as possible. Thus was born the first educational MUD, destined to become the PBS of Cybernet. We wrote a Charter and Mission Statement, and crafted a Social Contract setting forth MicroMush as a non-violent learning community with emphasis on science, culture, and recreation. We attracted a lot of college students and a few high school students -- including 3 high school freshmen from West Newton MA. I knew that 'Aries' and 'Cyanna' and 'Cheyenne' were friends who played racquetball together in West Newton, but I knew little else about them. But they hung out a lot on MicroMush and had made friends with the crew who were building Cyberion City. About that same time, I was getting to know some graduate students at MIT's Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence who were working on projects of interest to our Senior Scientist in Educational Technology Research at BBN. One bright February morning, their advisor, Prof Hal Abelson, came by BBN to discuss the work of his students. At lunch, we sat down at a large round table in the BBN Cafeteria. I barely knew Prof Abelson, so I set my tray down at the seat just to his left. As we began to eat and chat, Hal Abelson remarked that his teenage daughter -- who had never shown much interest in computers or computer programming -- had discovered a most amazing site on the Internet. She and her girlfriends were spending a lot of time online and were talking about their activities in cyberspace. As I listened to Hal describe his daughter's enthusiasm, I interrupted him, "Hal, are you talking about MicroMush?" Abelson paused, "Oh, you've heard of it?" "Hal, I'm Moulton on MicroMush!" "You're Moulton? I should have known!" And he slapped his thigh as we had good laugh. Later that spring, Jin worried that when he graduated in a few months, he would lose access to the Sun machine at Cal State Fresno, and MicroMush would go off the air. Jin decided to pay a pilgrimage to Boston, so he flew east for his spring break to meet me in real life. We went down to MIT to visit Hal and his daughter 'Aries'. After hellos, I got right to the point: Jin was graduating and losing access to the computer resources upon which MicroMush ran. Was there any chance Hal could help us find a new host? Without batting an eye, Hal gave us a 50-MHz RISC machine that was sitting idle in his lab. Within days, we began the port. Aries went on to run her own Muse on her father's machine at MIT, and mastered enough computer science in the process to co-author a book with her father: LOGO for the Mac. The Muse had brought father and daughter together on a joint project thick with technical depth and innovation. Aries is now completing her freshman year at Bowdoin College. Meantime, MicroMush became MicroMuse at MIT's AI Lab and rededicated itself to K-12 educational outreach. Over the past 4 1/2 years, we've seen some 5000 participants in MicroMuse. In my next message, I'll tell you about some of the other acitivities and spin-offs from the MicroMuse Project, including how I met your moderator, Rob Reilly. Barry