Evaluating Participation in an International Bilingual Virtual World Educational Intervention for Youth
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4101/jvwr.v2i5.810Keywords:
virtual world, evaluation, computer, technology, constructionism, youth, childrenAbstract
This paper reports on an evaluation of participation in a complex, international, bilingual project called ClubZora. ClubZora was an eleven-month educational intervention in which the Zora virtual world was introduced to an international after-school community of youth spanning 11 countries and two languages, English and Spanish. Zora is a multi-user virtual environment that provides a safe space for youth. In Zora, users can create and populate a virtual city by making their own places and interactive creations, using 3D objects such as picture frames, movie screens, houses, interior decorations, message boards, and signs. Zora provides both a real-time chat system and a message-board system for communication. Each action performed by the participants in Zora is logged into a database and analyzed with a customized online log-parser. The log parser allows for easy exploration of population demographics and data related to software usage (i.e., logging on/off, conversations, object creation, etc.). In addition, a master registry of the objects created in Zora is contained within a file called a