Immersive Education - Online Learning Worlds

I read an interesting article in The Chronicle of Higher Education / Information Technology, by Andrea Foaster and dated 12/21/07. Harvard University has devoted itself to a multimillion-dollar non-profit project to build virtual-reality software exclusively for education in fantasy spaces like Second Life. Using interactive 3D graphics, web cameras, web-based telephony, and other digital media, the goal is to build 3D interactive lessons that will grab attention but without the violence and titillation used in many of today's online games. Backers of this project include Boston College, Harvard U., Amherst College, Columbia U, MIT, Sweden's Royal Inst. of Technology, Japan's U of Aizu, the Asraeli Assoc. of Grid Technologies, NASA, Sun Microsystems, the City of Bostm, and the New Media Consortium.