Zora

• Overview
• Screenshots
• Projects
• Demos
• Log Parser

Overview

Zora is a multi-user graphical environment specifically developed to help users design and inhabit a virtual city. Several users can interact and communicate with each other in real time through a chat system. Users can populate the virtual world with their own interactive creations. They can design objects, characters, personal spaces, and a virtual community. Users can select avatars to represent themselves and develop their corresponding profiles that specify personal heroes and villains, cherished values, and biographies.

Zora is a web-based environment explicitly designed to help young people explore issues of identity and to promote positive development through the use of technology. The first version of Zora was developed while Prof. Bers was completing her doctoral work at the MIT Media Lab, using the Micorsoft Virtual Worlds development platform. The new version of Zora is being developed at Tufts University by Prof. Bers, her team of students in the DevTech research group and Academic Technologies using the ActiveWorlds platform.

Screenshots

Projects

• Zora @ Hospitals (Microsoft Media Player ): a virtual community of transplant pediatric patients using Zora to create a peer-support network and improve medical adherence & school adjustment. This project is funded by NSF and has received additional funding from the Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Fund.
•      - CampZora Video Tour
• Zora @ Camps: a virtual community of youth affected by cancer and blood disorders that use Zora to maintain camp friendships built at Camp For All (Burton, Texas) and to improve their sense of hopefulness and social connectedness.
•      - Camp4All Video Tour
• Zora @ Computer Clubhouses: a virtual community for pre-teens and teens participating in the national and international network of after-school computer-based learning environments, who use Zora to develop cultural awareness and respect for cultural diversity.
•      - ClubZora Video Tour (Quicktime: Small file size | Large file size)
• Zora @ Tufts: a pre-orientation for incoming freshman students who use Zora to create the campus of the future and explore connections between campus and community.
•      - A.C.T. 2005 (Microsoft Media Player)
•      - A.C.T. 2006 (Quicktime)

Demos

Zora instruction demos (Note: some of these videos require Flash Player Download here or Microsoft Media Player Download here)

• - Changing Avatars
• - 1st and 3rd Person View
• - Chatting in Zora
• - Citizen Profiles
• - Values Dictionary
• - Building a House
• - Creating Objects
• - Uploading pictures from your desktop (Flash Player)
• - Teleporting between locations
• - Troubleshooting 1 -> Component Windows Configuration
• - Troubleshooting 2 -> Getting lost in Zora Worlds; how to get back
• - Creating an Interactive Ojbect

Log Parser

The parser helps aggregate and analyze Zora system data.

The parser outputs data in raw spreadsheets, graphs, and pdf reports.