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example, BarbieGirls.com, by Mattel, registered 4 million users in the first 3 months
after its launch, with an average of 45,000 new girls a day.
From another perspective, KZERO Research, a UK-based company aiming to
understand “the marketing dynamics relating to virtual worlds,” examined the cur-
rent state of virtual worlds by looking at the total registered accounts as of quarter
two of 2008 and found how prevalent virtual worlds for youth are—the largest vir-
tual world for adults (over age 20), has 13 million registered users, while the largest
for children or youth has 90 million users (and there are six additional worlds
with between 17 and 45 million users for people under 20 years). For a figure
showing the year/month of the launch of the virtual world, its current size, and
worlds that are currently in development, visit:
http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2008/05/virtual-world-numbers-q2-2008.jpg
. As a final indication
of the prevalence of virtual worlds for youth, eMarketer reports that 24% of the 34.3
million US child and teen Internet users will visit virtual worlds once a month in
2007, up to 34% in 2008 and by 2011, 53% (Williamson, 2008).
However, there are also popular virtual worlds with a less commercially
focused approach. For example, ZulaWorld.com (though still based on the chil-
dren's TV show Zula Patrol) focuses around math, science, and technology, and
the Panwapa virtual world, immerses children “in a unique and novel explo-
ration of self, community and cultures from around the world” in order to
“empower a new generation of children, ages four to seven, to be responsible global
citizens” (from the website). Other virtual worlds such as Quest Atlantis (Barab,
Thomas, Dodge, Carteaux, & Tuzun, 2005), River City (Dede, Ketelhut, Clarke,
Nelson, & Bowman, 2005; Dede, Nelson, Ketelhut, Clarke, & Bowman, 2004),
Second Life in Education (
http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/
), MOOSE Cro-
ssing (Bruckman, 1996), Whyville (
http://www.whyville.net/smmk/nice
), 3DLearn
(
http://www.3dlearn.com/
), Jumpstart (
http://www.jumpstart.com/
), and Zora (Bers,
Chau, Satoh, & Beals, 2007; Bers, Gonzalez-Heydrich, Raches, & DeMaso, 2001a),
to name just a few, are designed by researchers with the hope of engaging young
people in learning and personal and social developments.
This chapter draws from experience in designing and evaluating the Zora vir-
tual world for youth (Bers, 2001). Zora has been used since 1999 with several very
different populations of young people, including those with end-stage renal disease
undergoing dialysis treatment (Bers, Gonzalez-Heydrich, & DeMaso, 2003; Bers,
Gonzalez-Heydrich, & DeMaso, 2001b), multicultural groups (Bers, 2008a; Bers &
Chau, 2006), freshman in college (Bers, 2008a), posttransplant pediatric patients
(Bers et al., 2007; Satoh, Beals, Chau, & Bers, 2007; Satoh, Blume, DeMaso,
Gonzalez-Heydrich, & Bers, 2008), and participants in national and international
after-school computer-based learning centers (Beals & Bers, under review).
Based on the differences of the sites and experiences, the chapter provides guide-
lines for understanding how to design and evaluate intervention programs that use
virtual worlds for children by taking into consideration eight different dimensions:
(1) curriculum, (2) mentoring model, (3) diversity, (4) project scale, (5) contact with
participants, (6) type of assessment, (7) access environment, and (8) institutional
context of usage.
