Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
From a pedagogical perspective, Zora affords opportunities for developing edu-
cational interventions in which the curriculum can be emergent or explicit based
on the needs and experiences of the population using Zora. For example, in terms
of explicit curriculum, we have developed a system that provides online modules
with activities aimed at exploring particular powerful ideas. The curricular modules
and activities are designed by the researchers or practitioners running the project
and can be setup on the basis of the population needs as well as the project goals.
For example, each activity can be specified to be for individual or groups, for syn-
chronous or asynchronous participation, for learning new content or engaging in
social interactions. As users start to engage with the activities, the system automa-
tically checks for status, updates the completed activities, and displays new ones
based on what has been done previously. A rewards mechanism is also established
to motivate youth to complete the activities. Each activity is associated with Zora-
based online questionnaires to assess participant's learning as well as the activity
itself.
From a technical perspective, the first version of Zora was developed in 1999
using the Microsoft Virtual Worlds development platform (Bers, 2001). The current
versionofZorausedinthe Active Citizenship through Technologies (ACT) program
has been revised and developed using the ActiveWorlds platform (Satoh, Mc Vey,
Grogan, & Bers, 2006). This platform for developing educational multiuser environ-
ments is used by educational research projects such as Quest Atlantis (Barab et al.,
2005) and River City (Nelson, Ketelhut, Clarke, Bowman, & Dede, 2005). Zora
has similarities with the growingly popular Second Life R virtual world (Ondrejka,
2004) in presenting a 3D environment for users to develop a virtual community.
However, unlike Second Life © , Zora is a secured and password-protected world in
which only youth engaged with a particular research program can view the world
and contribute to it. This provides a secure environment for children who are sharing
emotionally charged personal situations (such as having a transplant or expressing
personal opinions about political life) and for researchers who can have full access
to the data.
Each action performed by the participants in Zora is logged into a database and
analyzed with a customized log parser. The log parser is divided into four sub-
components: population demographics, search data, reports, and graphs. A search
component provides access to various types of information about users, such as con-
versations, objects, number of times they logged into Zora, and the time spent on
Zora, while also being able to filter for date ranges. Figure 18.2 displays a snapshot
of the search page as well as a sample result page for objects created by a user. This
information is not only displayed as a web page but it is also available in the form of
an Excel worksheet. This facilitates researchers to perform further analysis on this
data. The graphs component extends the results to a graphical format. Figure 18.3
shows the snapshot for the graph page and the data displayed in a graph. The reports
component generates the reports for objects and conversations over time in the form
of pdf documents.
From a theoretical perspective, Zora is designed upon Bers' Positive Techno-
logical Development (PTD) framework that addresses the question “how can we
Search WWH ::




Custom Search