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Source photos for avatar creation, clothing, etc.

Controversial. Scary. Effective. A young woman is using SL to allow users to experience a virtual imprisonment in Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay. She focuses on a former prisoner, a British national, whose father reads letters from his son while he was imprisoned. The project is called "Gone Gitmo" and presents the idea that such imprisonment is unconstitutional. Avatars experience realistic recreations of camp "cells" and questions are raised about the suspension of Habeas Corpus rights. Whether one finds this appealing or appalling, it certainly evokes emotion and demonstrates the power of virtual worlds as a learning environment.

This award-winning website allows children to: * Interact with dozens of famous historical and fictional characters from the arts, literature and sciences. * Submit creative writings for others to read and comment upon. * Explore famous works of art and play art related games. * Undertake challenging quests that take kids into the world of classic literature, the arts and humanities. * Practice typing with typing-tutor games. * Learn best practices for staying safe on the Internet. The website is not free, and they have a Teachers Console for class management. They recently partnered with the San Francisco Opera to bring classical music to young adults.

The Internet-based Free-Ed.Net whose slogan is"Free Education for All" has taken to Second Life as a medium. This site is a virtual campus that feels much like a community college, with each building representing a certain discipline (humanities, nursing, math, science, IT, etc.) Features an advanced Teleport system that allows you to browse different courses and locations within campus. Allows you to access different courses online by choosing links to them in the various locations. There are lots of information kiosks and support mechanisms throughout, including the site owner, making it easy to navigate. Handy for expanding one's knowledge in various areas of interest at one's own pace.

This is actually a YouTube video which I found to be very useful in explaining to people the potential uses of Second Life, which I have had to do a lot since beginning this course. It was done by a humanities teacher, so her emphasis is on history and drama instruction.