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ou can hear the text which people are writing to the textchat as a human voices! You can stream using Second Life voicechat your chat text by a human voice of your selection - man or woman voice, any language, accent, age etc. (basic english voices included, fairly usable, but for better results it's needed to get professional voices from internet) You can even use speech recognition and convert in text what you are telling to the microphone!

And what exactly is E.V.A.? Is is a special software voice interface for Second Life (for MS-Windows platform and S.A.P.I. 5 only so far). Simply said - it is a "text to speech" and "speech to text" software interface connected to the SL text chat, an enhancement of the Second Life integrated voice chat or is even usable without it.

Question: How is program getting text from the SL? Will I need to setup something in prefferences? Answer: Yes, you will need to enable chat logging at the Comunication tab in SL prefferences panel. Program is reading the text from the chat log file

At George Washington University in Washington State, a graduate-level course in instructional design was created by David Cillay, an assistant dean for distance education, as reported on TMC.net. The course was taught completely in Second Life, with the students, using their avatars, communicating with Cillay and one another through the course’s island (learning space) in Second Life. Cillay was impressed with the level of text and voice interaction between the students, even if they were only avatars onscreen. The students discussed what ‘instructional design means’ and took field trips to other SL locales such as a nuclear power plant.

Across the pond, City College Norwich in the UK is forging ahead with its own island. The location will give users a virtual tour of the campus and access to training and job vacancies. The school also hopes, down the line, to develop an educational presence. “Second Life has fantastic potential for learning,” said Dick Palmer, the principal, “which we will be starting to use more fully next year. For example, our new diploma students will come from lots of different areas, but Second Life will allow students to get together in an informal learning zone. We are excited to be embarking upon such an innovative initiative.”

After the experiment with virtual education at GWU, Cillay offered three recommendations to those thinking of entering the virtual education realm: - Temper your expectations. “There’s a tremendous wow factor for people just discovering ‘Second Life,’ ” he said. Students need some time to adjust and learn how to move and operate in that world. - “Understand what your expectations are,” Cillay said. Rather than expect huge gains in a classroom environment, consider it a first step in educational experimentation. - Give yourself and the students time to explore. “Do some research ahead of time, so you know the environment and find out what other educators are doing there,” said Cillay.