This is the course syllabus from Boise State University for EDTECH 597. Title of course is Teaching and Learning in Second LIfe. It has lots of research and reference links.
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
CamStudio is an open source screencast application cabable of capturing both audio and video directly of your PC screen - and store it for later playback.