ABSTRACT
Once upon a time, there was a MOO, an educational MOO, where literature and film classes met to discuss projects and assignments and where tutors met students to discuss writing. A teacher in this MOO happened, one day, to fall into conversation with a student from another teacher’s class. The conversation was unusually relaxed and genial, as MOO conversation often is, and the student volunteered that a class presentation earlier that day had not gone very well. The teacher wondered why, and the student explained that the presentation had taken place in the Purple Porpoise, the MOO equivalent of a local drinking establishment. The student said that everyone had been drinking and carousing, paying little attention. Hmmm, wondered the teacher, so she asked if the student saw anything wrong with virtual drinking during real classtime? “No,” said the student. “Of course not, how could there be anything wrong with it-it’s virtual?!”
