It's been a busy week. This morning Lucy pointed out that I haven't spent an entire evening at home for what seems like weeks. On Monday, I had Dean Steering committee. On Tuesday, I took the boys on the wasted trip to CompUSA. On Wednesday, we went to the first Valley Ice Chipettes practice. On Thursday, I had class. Last night was a second parents meeting in the class.
The parent's meeting was productive: a lot of concerns and ideas were put forward. I came up with some questions trying to synthesize concerns that people had brought to the meeting. And a lot of people had ideas about how to support the class and build community. Among other things, we talked about what we could do outside of school to help foster community. I describe my on-going efforts to help my children become creators of technology, and not just consumers. I mentioned Squeak and then talked a little about Muppyville.
After working with the MOO at school, I decided to set one up at home and call it Muppyville. So far, I've only build accounts for myself, Phil, Charlie and one friend. My goal is to build accounts for all the kids in Charlie's class. I explained how the MOO is a kind of chat environment, but it allows you create descriptions of places, to move from one place to another -- all using text. I was rather surprised how receptive people seemed to the idea. I think it will be great way to get kids to extend their reading and writing, but I've been worried how others will perceive it. For the past couple of weeks, I've been too busy to spend much time on it, but I'm having fun. We've created a beginning for Muppyville and next we need to learn how to do a little programming in order to create DoggyMups. Charlie is really excited by the possibilities.