I argue that the type of reflection-on-action that MOO Logs allow has "never been available before" for our students and curricula; let me qualify that a bit. Certainly, reflection-on-action is not unique to the MOO--we have always been able to reflect on past conversations, writing processes, and events thereby practicing metacognitive thought. However, never have transcripts of discussions been so easily available. In the sense of being able to save and print the online discussions and use the logs for reflection, online synchronous conferencing provides a new advantage for the writing classroom. (MOO shares this property with Intenet Relay Chat, classroom software chat systems, and other MUDs that enable conversations to be recorded and printed.)

I also understand that it is possible to save face-to-face discussions in different ways: discussions can be audio and/or video recorded, and students could listen and/or watch those tapes for subsequent reflection-on-action. In fact, if the student has enough time, she could even write or type out transcripts from the tapes and use those transcripts just like MOO logs. However, transcribing tapes takes at least three times as long as the discussions take themselves, which renders this method impractical (especially compared to creating MOO logs, which can be printed and handed back to students literally minutes after the online discussions are over).

In practical terms, then, I feel warranted to say that logs of real-time discussions haven't been available before synchronous computer-mediated communications.

MOO-based Metacognition: Incorporating Online and Offline Reflection into the Writing Process
Joel A. English