2. Some theory in favor of multi-user environments as learning environments

2.1 The "Samba school" argument (Papert/ Bruckman)

Papert (in Mindstorms) describes the Brazilian "Samba Schools"

• not really schools, but social clubs in which people of all ages and levels of experience work together in both formal and informal ways.

• he is inspired by the different relationship to learning the members develop, and the way in which learning becomes a community process.

• Schools generally undermine the development of such a learning culture by excessively formalizing learning and segregating people by age and experience.

• Logo appeals mostly to people who want to make fundamental changes in school.

• Logo is rather "content free", no purpose besides programming

• Difficulty to coordinate projects between computers, between school and home, etc.

(quoted from Bruckman's MOOSE Crossing Ph.D. proposal)

* self-motivated,

* richly connected to popular culture,

* focused on personally-meaningful projects,

* community based,

* an activity for people of all ages to engage in together,

* life long--experts as well as novices see themselves as learners, and

* situated in a supportive community.

Text-based virtual worlds on the Internet (MUDs) can have each of these features, in particular:
combination of construction with community with purpose

BUT:

1. those environments are not really user friendly

2. "Embedded" learning domains are limited so far, mostly:
   • programming (interactive objects, other internet applications)

   • verbal skills (how to articulate, describe, organize)

   • social skills (how to deal with people)

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