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Finally, as students become active participants in virtual world classes, the student who is on “cruise control” is at risk. Students shift from being passive listeners to engaging in group interaction and activities and demonstrating that they understand the course content via the completion of projects, papers, labs, and case studies. Many classes that include case studies use role-play, putting learners in roles and contexts in which they explore the content and make decisions based on the forces and constraints placed on them. One example of a class role-play is shown in Figure 2, which depicts Ramapo’s immersive literature activity in which Suffern Middle School students enact the courtroom scene from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. The students’ exploration of the content benefits from this social learning environment.

In their “lessons learned” papers, the students noted that the virtual world classes enhanced their learning experience and their perceptions of self and gave them new skills to demonstrate their mastery of the course content. The sense of presence and the customization of their avatars were high on their list of priorities for learning and participating in virtual world classes.

Classes in virtual worlds offer opportunities for visualization, simulation, enhanced social networks, and shared learning experiences. Some people learn best by listening to the course content, others by seeing and visualizing the content in context, and the rest by using a hands-on approach to demonstrate course competencies. In virtual worlds, we can leverage a mix of content and activity to support all learners: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Virtual worlds support these different learning styles and give students opportunities to explore, discover, and express their understanding of the subject. Naturally, the tool’s capabilities do not guarantee a great learning experience. The success of a course depends on effective course design, delivery, and assessment. Course designers, instructors, and IT professionals are challenged to create stimulating content, deliver it reliably, and ensure a stable virtual world learning environment. Do the benefits outweigh the risks associated with venturing into a virtual world educational platform? For me, the virtual world is my preferred learning and teaching environment. And I am not alone. Over 400 universities and 4,500 educators participate on the Second Life Educators List (SLED).1 All of us are studying how to leverage the benefits of learning in a virtual world in order to assist our students in today’s educational frontiers.

Third, a secure multi-age virtual world would provide educators with a rich environment in which to study instructional practices.

Individuals using computer resources belonging to The University of Arizona must act in a responsible manner, in compliance with law and University policies, and with respect for the rights of others using a shared resource. The right of free expression and academic inquiry is tempered by the rights of others to privacy, freedom from intimidation or harassment, protection of intellectual property, ownership of data, and security of information.” Although this policy seems fairly straightforward, the ten “Acceptable Use Guidelines” meant to clarify this policy instead introduce confusion. For example, Guideline 3, which instructs the computer user to “clearly and accurately identify one's self in electronic communications,” adds: “Do not forge or misrepresent one's identity. Concealing or masking the identity of electronic communications such as altering the source of an email message by making it appear as if the message was sent by someone else is a violation of this policy.”14 So a student knows that altering the sender of an e-mail is against policy, but what about creating an avatar? And what about the faculty member who asks students to create an avatar with a totally fictitious name? Are the faculty member and the students in violation of this policy?

an instructional technologist at the University of Arizona,was supporting the implementation of Second Life in a General Education class. She was concerned about the interesting style of dress, or lack thereof, that is often seen in Second Life and felt she needed to develop a dress code for the virtual class.15 But when the vice-provost for instruction and I were discussing the process for modifying the current dress code of the university, we discovered that the university does not even have a dress code for everyday life.16

For example, at the University of Arizona, faculty have expressed frustration because they cannot learn how to sit down in virtual worlds or because they cannot figure out how to correctly set the hair on their avatar. Because of these frustrations, they tend not to invest the time needed to explore the world as an instructional resource. However, as the NMC’s Levine has pointed out: “In our first life, it generally takes us maybe eighteen years . . . to get to be fully functional adults. It’s an evolutionary process. A virtual world that had a short learning curve would be something not very interesting. So I think an ideal virtual world needs some of that complexity.”17 The challenge thus becomes how to select a virtual world that has the necessary complexity to keep users engaged while developing strategies and structures to support them as they learn.

Even more important is that if an institution wants to implement a virtual world of any type, it needs to convince faculty that the early adopters are, in fact, not all mad and that the tool does have value. Instruction may just be in a form with which the faculty is unfamiliar. Therefore the institution must begin by offering faculty, staff, and students the time and support to perform simple tasks like learning how to navigate the environment. Faculty must then be assisted in visualizing something outside of their understanding of what it means to be a teacher.

Perhaps as important as setting goals and providing resources is developing realistic assessments of the project’s success. For example, in a virtual world such as Second Life, what are the metrics that will be used to determine the institution’s return on investment?