For those of you interested in using virtual reality in teaching mathematics, here is a paper written by four professors about their experience in trying to find ways to make mathematics more interesting to their engineering students. They designed a virtual reality math lab to be taken with a math class. One of the most popular lab components was the flight of a soccer ball. In a 3D setting, the students could stop the ball in time and then practice their mathematical skills by plugging in coordinates that would project the flight of the ball. 20 out of 20 students said that they felt the lab had helped them to enjoy math more. The professors felt their overwhelmingly positive response would lead them to develop more math labs for their students in the future.

Here is an interesting letter from an associate professor of physics at Elon University about his experience with using Second Life in his courses. He seems to really enjoy using new creative tools in his courses and is constantly looking for new ways to do things. He has tried many different representations of virtual reality. In general, he had assumed that all of his students would be fairly technically competent, especially in building in Second Life, but found that most of them fumbled around at first. Once they got on to it, they did quite well. He also took part in the Second Life Planetarium that has already been mentioned by one of the other students.

Here is an article that I found interesting re: Second Life and Cinematography students at USC. They feel that the thing that Second Life does best is facilitate social interaction. So their goal is to design a setting where people from all over the world can come together and talk. Unfortunately, the site is still under construction.

This is an article on the establishment of an NBA store in Second Life, one of the first of its kind back in 2007 during the NBA Finals. According to the article, you can buy digital shoes and jerseys. I tried to find the store, but was unable to locate it.

This is an article about utilizing Second Life to teach ESL. From language courses I have had, I know it makes a big difference for learners to be able to learn language in the context in which it is normally spoken. I can see how Second Life could have some applications to demonstrate to learners language spoken in context. "Second Life English" has an island devoted to teaching English. You may want to check it out.