I visited the Lost Library of Moo.  While reading an article called “The MediaMOO Project:
Constructionism and Professional Community”, I discovered that there was a Mud that had been created for children ages 9-13 called Moose Crossing.  I went to yahoo and searched for Moose Crossing and discovered that Moose Crossing is a virtual world where children can develop their creative writing skills and learn basic programming skills at the same time.  Students can create their own identity such as “a green fish with bright glittering scales”.  They can also create their own home and cities, for example there is one called The Emerald City of Oz.  There is also a castle…….read the description the child gave for this imaginary castle below:

It is clear that the child that wrote the description of the castle used his/her imagination.  This is why MooseCrossing is a neat way to encourage children to develop their creative writing skills. 

Not only can students create their own room/city, but they can also visit other people’s rooms and interact with them.   They can talk to each other as they are actively engaged in this imaginary world. 

I was very impressed when I examined Moose Crossing.  I discovered that teacher’s can sign up their entire class to participate in this virtual world.  All that is required is a parent signature stating that their child is allowed to go online to this site.  I downloaded Moose Crossing to my computer so that I could play around with it, however after accessing the program, I was very disappointed to learn that they are no longer accepting new users.  Only people that are already enrolled can participate. 

I think that a Mud like Moose Crossing would encourage children to increase their creative writing skills.  It is a different approach than traditional pencil and paper format.  Students could even draft some of their ideas and develop them on paper, before writing them online.  I would have never predicted that a game could be created to ehance students’ writing skills.  This is very innovative.

http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Amy.Bruckman/papers/convergence.html - article
http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/elc/moose-crossing/index.html - MooseCrossing Website