Club Zora ____________________

About

In the fall of 2007, the DevTech research group launched a new project called "ClubZora" that was completed in early September 2008. ClubZora engaged youth at Computer Clubhouses around the world in participating in a virtual community where they were able to design a virtual city, write stories, create characters, chat with each other, and import advanced multimedia items by using the web-based Zora multi-user 3D graphical environment.

Zora is explicitly designed to help young people explore issues of identity and cultural diversity, and to promote positive evelopment through the use of technology. The two main goals of ClubZora were to provide a virtual space for Computer Clubhouse members around the world to build a strong community and to help youth from different cultures to learn about each other. This project is funded by a Career grant from the National Science Foundation.

At the conclusion of the project in September 2008, we have seen great success. We have enrolled over 570 citizens, including over 430 youth and 130 Clubhouse Coordinators. The enrolled citizens represent 84 Clubhouses, 19 countries, and all 8 regions of the world that the Clubhouse Network serves, including the United States, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East-Africa, and Latin America. Of the youth, 37% are female and 63% male; 77% selected English as their primary language and 23% Spanish; and the average age is 14 years (range: 8 to 19 years). In addition, since the beggining of the project, participants have created almost 52,000 objects, recorded over 35,000 lines of chat, and logged in over 9800 times. Below is a map an arial view of all of the houses in the ClubZora city!

Below is a short video highlighting some structures made by ClubZora members:

The projects in the movie above are:

1. Virtual group meeting of Latin American coordinators in December, 2007
2. Personal House: by seyes, 18 years, from Planetario Clubhouse in Guadalajara, Mexico
3. Suba Compartir Clubhouse: by juanpisultra30 17 years, from Suba Compartir Clubhouse in Colombia
4. Area 34: by cheap31, 16 years, from Lakewood Clubhouse, CA, USA
5. Maze: by juandi, coordinator/mentor from Suba Compartir Clubhouse in Colombia
6. Pyramid: by chacon, mentor/coordinator from CEDES Clubhouse in Alajuelita, Costa Rica

Below are some additional screenshots from ClubZora projects!

From user aclarke:

From user pipelon:



From user clarkdenver:

______________With support from:

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