I’m very much hooked on Second Life at the moment. That means I’ve subscribed to a number of Second Life and virtual reality related blogs, and have been watching some videos on YouTube to find some places I haven’t visited yet.
One such place was Princeton University, which has been recreated in Second Life. Princeton has created one of the biggest areas in the virtual world, spanning seven “islands” and encroaching on MIT’s land. It was fun walking around and looking at the buildings, but there didn’t seem to be anything particularly interesting happening there. Hopefully though, that will change in the future:
Computer science professor Ed Felten, who directs the Center of Information Technology Policy and has examined the potential applications of Second Life, said the program has practical uses as well as entertainment purposes.
“Some colleges have experimented with using it for teaching classes inside a virtual world, which is called distance learning,” he said.
Though the University has no plans to use Second Life for hosting lectures because it is sometimes unreliable, Temos said the program eventually could be used as an alternative to precepts held in physical classrooms.
I’ll probably revisit the topic of virtual classrooms in the future, but I want to leave you with this promo video, giving an overview of Second Life and what it’s capable of.
If you can’t view the video, you can see it here on YouTube.
For a while there I managed to avoid the virtual world of 
Second Life has its own economy. You can buy Linden dollars with real money and use them to buy anything from land to virtual dance moves. With nearly 10 million people registered and close to 50,000 people online at any one time, businesses such as Dell and Georgio Armani have set up “virtual” shop in Second Life for “real” business.
