Julie’s musings on play and demented pink cats brings out some good questions. What is “fun”? “Play”? How can these things be replicated in the classroom? Do we make them artificial by attempting to “use” them for educational gain? Are we, as educators, too restricted by the unbending will of university administration
to allow true play? Does this restriction(s) make it impossible for us to replicate it and thus us it to our advantage? What is the definition of play as we know it (and agree on it)?

Julia gets a bit nostalgic (or wonders why others do). Why do we collect old things? Why do I have a 186(?) laptop in the closet a 486 desktop and a MAC classic on my home network? I long for the old days, I miss the days of playing Zork and King’s Quest until the sun came up. I miss the days of the impenetrable DOS prompt. I wish for simpler times when the goal of technology was clear (at least to me and my limited world view). Maybe I should take a day, a week, or a month just to PLAY and drag Julia along with me. She wonders where that sense of play has gone. She wonders if the MOO is really a “play” place or is that just the way that it is perceived by those skeptics around us. Good question. Do we take the “play” out of PLAY by bringing it into the classroom. Does it cease to be fun if it becomes to serious? To play or not to play that is the question and it carries over into the conversation of MOOs and whether or not we play with identity creation as Curtis and Turkle claim or do we reduce/restrict the sense of play as is suggested in _MOOniversity_ and Dibbell?

Mike wonders how the changing definition of writing will affect the phrase and job of the “writing teacher”. If we include computers into our realm of expertise are we adding to or detracting from our profession? Are we simply adding a layer to the already complex make up of the job of writing teacher?Are we keeping up with the Joneses? Are we keeping ourselves from becoming obsolete? Are we spreading ourselves too thin? Are we raising the bar for other teachers in order to insure that only the most well trained and overworked “computers and writing teachers” are marketable? Hmmm… Mike also makes a good point about the fallacy of the idea that educational MOO discussions need to be fairly tightly reigned in order to be effective. If we don’t give the students a sense of play and/or freedom how are they supposed to feel free to think and express
themselves? This is not to say behavior that is disrespectful to the instructor or other students is acceptable but there has to be a good degree of freedom. This always makes me think of Foucault’s _History of Sexuality_, how can we expect students to become active citizens if we raise/train them to be passive? On Dibble,
what is the body? Can it be replicated in cyberspace? Is this psychic body the same as the physical body? Is violence against the psychic body comparable to violence against the physical body? How can we get students to the point that they can discuss this in an informed way?

In her post of September 2nd  Margaret seems to be drawn to the idea of the SOCIAL. Her post makes me wonder how much glossing over we do (or should) do of the social aspects of technology. We (in composition) talk about writing as social activity, should we also look for that social aspect in our computer mediated writing courses. Should we teach in social MOOs like LambdaMOO rather than the safe, sanitized educational MOOs like Connections? What are the pros and cons of this decision? Margaret continues with the idea of social/play in her next post. “Is it educational to play?” I hope so! There has to be method to the madness of “educational toys”. I am a firm believer that people do a lot more learning if they are having fun while they do it. Not that college students are like toddlers, we all are, but if it works for them why can’t it work for us? We have to be
interested in, fascinated by, willing to put a lot of time into anything that we want to learn about. So what the heck, learn and have fun!!

Erin makes some good points on transparent vs. opaque
technologies. I think that seeing any technology (and here specifically I am talking about computers) is a dangerous thing when we are using it as a teaching tool. We assume too much about the general student population if we assume that they know how to use (and why they use) the most “basic” of computer technologies, the word processing program. What does it mean that each generation of MS Word has more complex online collaboration components built in? What does it mean that Word assumes that multiple people will be “reviewing” a text? What does it mean that we can now specifically check versions of a text? Why are some or all of these things important in the writing classroom? Perhaps the time has come for a resurgence of “The Rhetoric of the Word
Processor.” Erin also does some important ranting on MOO life. When we are close to something in a personal way, it is often hard to be critical or theoretical. But interestingly enough it is usually
these folks who are so close that do the best job of being critical. 1) because they are aware of their personal biases where others are not and 2) because they are more likely to be careful to get the facts straight so that they can’t be accused of being biased. (I suppose there should at least be a 3 but…) In one post Erin declares
here undying love for EnCore (ok maybe that’s a bit strong) but wonders why Jan and Cynthia (authors of MOOniversity) seem to want to make MOOs educational only and to remove the sense of play and the possibility of disruption. As a huge proponent of play, I wonder why we would use the MOO technology if we had no intention of using it to make learning FUN. Why use it at all if it is to be
as restrictive as the traditional classroom? On Dibbell, Erin
writes that many folks don’t get it. I agree. How can we expect people to “get” MOO life without having ever experienced it? How can people understand if the don’t know the make up, the feeling of community, the connection, the disconnection? All good questions that beg for participation to clarify.

Serkan tells a great story about how “historical access” works in the real world. Under our current (and future?) educational system students who have not historically had access to computers (and lack keyboarding) skills are at a disadvantage. It is only when , and if, we bring these issues to the forefront and make people think about them (perhaps through our own stories) that we can open up the possibility of change. In connection with being left out of the technological loop Serkan also talks about humanists being left out of the loop and how they need to be included if we ever hope to validate and authenticate computers as another writing/communication technology (ala Baron “From Pencils to Pixels”). This is a good point. Language has traditionally been used
to authenticate language, and who better to authenticate writing and communication technology than writers and communicators? Ok, here’s a stress on connecting Serkan’s third post…Validation and MOOs/MUDs...They are not necessarily valid as places of healing (ala Turkle) depending on your actual position in society life in cyberspace may not be as pleasant and liberating as
Turkle would have us believe. In our own safe spaces or (cyber)home discourse communities we can feel safe but what happens when we MOOve into cyber places that more directly reflect the attitudes of the “majority”?

Kate is ready to move on to the heavy MOO stuff. Oftentimes, what we do know of MOOs is identity theory (and specifically Dibbell and Turkle). Its seminal stuff and I think it is good idea to look at it in depth and decide where we stand on the “fun” aspect of MOOing before we move on to the how and why of its usage in the
classroom. Kate worries about policing capabilities online, and with good reason, what happens when the MOO cow goes wrong? How and when should we, as educators, step in and say STOP!? How do we say stop? How much of our teacherly authority do we exert? All things that we will hash out in the coming weeks.