Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 18.1
The Zora virtual world
values and their multiple definitions, which are seen as personally meaningful as
well as important to the community. The dictionary also reinforces discussions
among community members about contrasting points of view for similar value
entries or definitions (Bers & Chau, 2006).
In addition to making virtual objects and narratives, Zora provides a real-time
chat system for participants to communicate with each other while navigating
throughout the virtual world. The environment is purposefully designed to provide
both synchronous and asynchronous modes of communication in order to accom-
modate different personalities and time zones, as well as to afford participants a
chance to self-reflect on their narratives, values, and stories.
While the constructionist philosophy of learning informed the design of Zora as
an environment for children to create their own virtual city, a most recently devel-
oped educational paradigm, computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL),
inspired the need to incorporate in Zora tools for community building and com-
munity scaffolding of learning (Koschmann & Kolodner, 1997; Preece, 2001). For
example, the creation of theme houses and public spaces give grounds to develop
social connections with others who share similar interests.
CSCL shifts the process of cognition as residing within the head of one individ-
ual, which was rooted in Piaget's theories, to the view of learning as a social process,
which is rooted on Vygostskian's theory, and of cognition as situated within a par-
ticular community of learning or practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Thus the focus is
on creating social environments in which constructionist types of learning activities
using technologies can happen.
