Zora at Tufts

Active Citizenship through Technologies

Funded by a Tisch faculty fellowship to Professor Marina Umaschi Bers and a grant from Academic Technologies, The A.C.T. Pre-Orientation program was designed to understand the utility of networked technologies and purposefully designed curriculum on students’ civic participation on Tufts’ campus. This three-day long intensive program took place as a pre-orientation program during summer 2005 and summer 2006 just before participants’ matriculation to the university.

The goals of the program were:

  • To engage incoming freshman in a fun, hands-on set of activities that will help them become part of a community and a social support network.
  • To provide an educational experience in which freshman will learn about academic, institutional, social, and extracurricular life at the university and the surrounding community.
  • To leverage on young people’s fascination with computers as means to encourage their participation in an educational program in which they will gain more sophisticated knowledge about new technologies.

Program Details

Please click on one of the links below to view that year’s program brochure for more details.

Student Video Presentations

Please choose from below to view video presentations made by A.C.T. students and staff members

A.C.T. 2005 Zora Video:

 

A.C.T. 2006 Zora Video (Quicktime Video):

 

People:

Primary Investigator – Professor Marina Umaschi Bers – marina.bers@tufts.edu // marina.bers@bc.edu as of 2022

Project Coordinator – Clement Chau – clement.chau@tufts.edu

Program Coordinator 2005 – Ashima Mathur – ashima.mathur@tufts.edu

Program Coordinator 2006 – Daniela Mesalles  – daniela.mesalles@tufts.edu

With support from: Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service and University Information Technology