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ARPA Workshop on MUDs and Schools


I tried to get us an invitation to the "ARPA Workshop on MUDs and
Schools" but the workshop is full.  You might find the progra,
attached below, of interest.  Tim

------- Start of forwarded message -------
From: cal@antares.aero.org
To: finin@cs.umbc.edu
Cc: cal@aero.org
Subject: MUDshop - I am sorry, the attendance list is closed,
Date: 	Thu, 8 Dec 1994 20:38:14 -0800

since we are meeting in a limited facility away from the MIT campus.
However, we will certainly send you the proceedings when they become
available, and keep your name on our list for future MUDshops (we
expect to have one in the spring or summer that will be larger and
also announced further in advance).

We are delighted to hear from you, since our purpose in this small
MUDshop was to begin to bring together the large numbers of disparate
organizations that are actively working in the area.  We have
collected a number of groups over the last few weeks, and it is only
our size constraints in this workshop that prevents me from inviting
you to this one.  Stay tuned.

Also, I enclose the almost-certainly-not-quite-last version of the
MUDshop program.

more later,
cal


MUDshop Program

	ARPA Workshop on MUDs and Schools
	12-16 December, 1994
	MIT's Endicott House

Message from the Conference Chair

The purpose of this workshop, the first in a series, is to scope out the
critical issues and challenges necesary to make MUDs / MOOs / MUSEs (M**) a
part of the technology available to national large scale information systems
being built (NII and DoD), and specifically to focus on its use for the DoD
and national education and training applications.  This initial workshop was
reserved for those active in this area; our goals are to bring together the
active "pockets" of expertise, assess and scope the current work, and focus on
the challenges and future needs in this area.  In later workshops and
conferences, we will be encouraging a wider audience interested in learning
more about M**.  Drawing upon this direction-setting work, I will be putting
together R&D plans to facilitate work in M**.  I know that many of us are
concerned about the government's role in Cyberspace - I too grew up on the
frontier and worry about the cyber-settlers and 'land developers.'  I hope to
hear your guidance not only on R&D support targets but on the appropriate
government actions and NON-actions you would like to see.

In order to maximize the time for discussion in the Working Groups, we have
organized most of the speakers into panels.  On a panel, each participant
gives a 15 minute presentation and also answers / asks questions and generally
interacts with others on the panel.  The point of all of the talks (whether on
the panels or the single talks) is to give an overview of your participation /
experience / interest in this area and to suggest some of the areas that we
need to focus on.  All speakers (panels or singletons) have submitted an
abstract.

The responses - suggestions, ideas - have been tremendous.  THANK-YOU!
				I look forward to meeting all of you.
					Kirstie Bellman
					MUDshop Conference Chair

(tentative) final MUDshop Program Schedule

................................................................
MON Afternoon
	6-7		-- meeting, greeting, ... --
	7-8		Buffet Dinner
	8-??		Informal Discussion, some collection of issues,
			coordination of evening special topics sessions,
			and identification of candidate Focus Topics
................................................................
TUE Morning
	8:30-9:30	Buffet Breakfast
	9:30-9:45	Welcome and Opening Remarks
			Dr. Kirstie Bellman, ARPA / SISTO
	9:45-10:15	Participants Introduce Themselves
	10:15-10:30	Break
			................................
	10:30-11	Amy Bruckman, MIT Media Lab,
			"MOOSE Crossing"
	11-11:30	Vijay Saraswat, Danny Bobrow, Xerox PARC,
			"On Designing Richer Realities to Live In:
			Model-based Social Computational Spaces"
	11:30-12	Sherry Turkle, MIT,
			"The Whole Child is on the MUD:
			Towards a Developmental Psychlogy of MUDding"
................................................................
TUE Afternoon
	12-1		Buffet Lunch
	1-3		Lessons Learned - I Panel (moderator - Chris Landauer)
			Lauren Burka, Northeastern U.,
			"MUD History"
			Jay Carlson, Northeastern U.,
			"JHM"
			John Crane, Qualcomm,
			"How and Why DragonMUD Works"
			Lydia Leong, U. Pennsylvania,
			"MUD Culture: Past, Present, and Future"
			Simon Kaplan, U.Illinois,
			"LOCALES"
	3-3:30		Break
			................................
	3:30-5:30	Lessons Learned - II Panel (moderator - Carl Hewitt)
			Jen Clodius, U. Wisconsin,
			"MUDs as Cultures: Why Does MUDding Work?"
			Judy Ellis, U. Southern Maine,
			"MUSEs for Education"
			Jim Walters, Billie Hughes, Phoenix College,
			"MariMUSE" - 30 minutes
			Jeanne McWhorter, U. Houston,
			"Diversity University MOO"
			................................
	6-7		Buffet Dinner
			................................
	7-8		Program Committee chooses initial Focus Topics
	8-??		Selection Groups identify candidate Focus Topics
			(groups arbitrarily selected for this purpose only)
................................................................
WED Morning
	7:30-8:30	Buffet Breakfast
			................................
	9-9:30		David Zeltzer, MIT Electronics Lab,
			"Task Level Interaction with Virtual Actors and Virtual Environments"
	9:30-10		Margaret Syverson, U. Texas at Austin,
			"Of Course It's Fun, But How Do We Know It's Working?
			An Inquiry into Humane Methods of Assessing Learning in Emerging Systems"
	10-10:30	Mitchel Resnick, MIT Media Lab,
			"Construction in Learning and Collaborative Simulations"
	10:30-10:45	Break
			................................
	10:45-12	Technology Challenges Panel (moderator - Kirstie Bellman)
			Mike Macedonia, Naval PostGraduate School,
			"Multicast Technology for Large Scale Virtual Environments"
			Andy Ferrell, U. California at San Diego,
			"Intelligent Agents"
			Michael Johnson, MIT Media Lab,
			"Semi-Autonomous Non-Player Characters"
			Chris Landauer, The Aerospace Corp.,
			"The Envelope: Combining MUDs, Shells, and Wrappings"
................................................................
WED Afternoon
	12-1		Buffet Lunch
	1-3		Possible Futures Panel (moderator - Wally Feurzeig)
			Mike O'Brien, The Aerospace Corp.,
			"Geographic Landscapes and User Agents"
			Franklyn Turbak, MIT,
			"MUSEME: Educational Uses of MUDs"
			Remy Evard, Northeastern U.,
			"Collaborative Work Environments"
			Wally Feurzeig, Paul Horwitz, BBN,
			"Putting Modeling into MUSEs"
			David Albert, Harvard U.,
			"Issues in MUSE Privacy and Security"
	3-3:30		Break
			................................
	3:30-5:30	General Discussion to Select Focus Topics, and
				break into Working Groups on Focus Topics
			................................
	6-7		Buffet Dinner
			................................
	8-??		Evening Special Topics (TBA)
................................................................
THU Morning
	7:30-8:30	Buffet Breakfast
			................................
	9-9:30		Michael Zyda, Naval PostGraduate School,
			"NPSNET: A Network Software Architecture for Large Scale
				Virtual Environments"
	9:30-10		Barry Kort, BBN,
			"The MUSE as an Educational Medium"
	10-10:30	Carl Hewitt, MIT AI Lab,
			"Participatory Mathematics"
	10:30-11	Break
			................................
	11-12		Working Groups on Focus Topics
................................................................
THU Afternoon
	12-1		Buffet Lunch
	1-3		Working Groups on Focus Topics
	3-3:30		Break
			................................
	3:30-5:30	Presentation and Discussion of Working Group Outlines
			................................
	6-7		Buffet Dinner
	8-??		Evening Special Topics (TBA)
................................................................
FRI Morning
	7:30-8:30	Buffet Breakfast
			................................
	9-10		Presentation and Discussion of Working Group Outlines
	10-10:30	Break
			................................
	10:30-12	"Where Do We Go From Here?" Panel
................................................................
FRI Afternoon
	12-1		Buffet Lunch (box lunches in conference room)
	1-4		Informal Discussion (TBA)
................................................................

Notes

Selection Groups help choose Focus Topics.
	Their membership will be arbitrarily selected.
	They will be given an initial set of possible topics,
		with a request to add to it, delete from it, change it,
		and then select the most important ones.
	They will meet TUE evening, and report back their selections and rationale
		during the General Discussion, which will start at 3:30pm WED,
		after all the panels have been completed.
	The results of their deliberations may also be put on posters for other to see
		(easels and large paper will be available).

Working Groups discuss Focus Topics and organize white papers about them.
	Their membership will be self-selected according to interest.
	We expect to have about five Focus Topic Working Groups.
	They will take a Focus Topic (perhaps a small cluster of similar ones)
		and discuss it to produce an outline of the white paper,
		starting immediately after the Focus Topic selections WED,
		and continuing THU from 11am through lunch to 3pm.
	The outline will be presented to the entire group for comment and discussion,
		beginning 3:30pm THU and continuing 9am FRI.

Evening Special Topics are for individuals who want to give demos, conduct guided tours,
		or have a group discuss technical issues specific to one system
		or specific aspects of one kind of system.
	These will be arranged on an ad hoc basis for WED and THU evening,
		and announced early enough for interested people to attend
		(We already have requests for two such special topics).
	Reports on the meeting results will be welcome as they become
		more generally relevant to the discussions (as we expect they will),
		and we would like them to be written up for the proceedings.
	The results of the discussions may also be recorded on posters for other to see
		(easels and large paper will be available).

The "Where Do We Go From Here?" panel has not been populated yet.
During the MUDshop, Kirstie will invite people to be on that panel.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Chris Landauer (for the Program Committee:)
Carl Hewitt
Wally Feurzeig
Jen Clodius
Valerie Polichar
Jopsy Crane

------- End of forwarded message -------
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