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It's the place where virtual friendships are made and digital real estate is bought and sold, but educators say the fast-growing Second Life community is also a powerful tool for collaborative learning.
On first appearances it doesn't seem very productive: a group of digital avatars - the online creations of real people - sit around a campfire in a pleasant park, chatting away.
"This experience can be a lot of fun," says Leigh Blackall, an education development manager for Otago Polytechnic.
"We drink around the campfire and the beers are programmed to make us tipsy."
Blackall conducted a Second Life meeting of education professionals from around the world during his speech to the Webstock internet conference in Wellington on Tuesday, and says that such virtual meetings could be the future of long-distance learning.
"It wasn't until I had my first encounter with a purpose in Second Life, like a meeting, that I realised what it's all about. There are a lot of people in education trying to get into this."
Second Life's global reach and the freedom users have to build their own world is seen by networked learning experts like Blackall as an ideal forum for students to collaborate and share ideas.
Its potential has already been recognised by Second Life's creators, Linden Lab, who have set up Campus: Second Life, which allows a free grant of land in the virtual Second Life world to an educational organisation for the duration of a semester.
Discounted land plots are also on offer for schools and universities - something of tangible value in a world where an island will set you back US$1600 and US$100 a month in upkeep.
Whole islands can be bought by educational institutions where entry is restricted to their real-life students.
Educational professionals collaborate on a Second Life wiki - a type of online database - to standardise virtual education tools.
Blackall says the potential for development of educational resources in Second Life is huge, but that the tightly funded education sector is hesitant to invest in the online community, which has 7.2 million members and can turn over the equivalent of US$1 million a day in virtual currency.
"So far, no takers," he says ofprojects he has suggested. "It's quite difficult to get things going in education."
Blackall says the real-time aspect of Second Life makes it "bandwidth hungry" and suitable only for high-speed internet connections. But Second Life is becoming increasingly sophisticated - he is particularly looking forward to Second Life users being able to display websites within the online environment.
Students could, for example, sit in a virtual meeting collectively editing a wiki document.
Blackall says up to 40 digital avatars could congregate together in Second Life before the digital terrain became too chaotic, enough for a good-sized class.
Second Life educational resources could become cheaper and more creative alternatives to CD-rom applications and websites now aimed at children, he says, but he admits that the early educational institutions in Second Life are generally just building virtual versions of their existing campuses.
"At the moment it's not quite there. We're not thinking outside the box."
Blackall says he will continue his research into Second Life's educational opportunities - as much as he is allowed to.
"When my boss sees me sitting around a campfire chatting with Darth Vader, I quickly turn Second Life off."
On the web
learnonline.wordpress.com/
secondlife.com/education/
Second Life
* Second Life is an internet-based virtual world which started in 2003.
* It allows users, called residents, to interact using their online alter-egos, called avatars.
* Avatars can walk, fly or use vehicles to navigate the environment.
* Second Life uses a virtual currency, Linden dollars, which can be exchanged for US dollars.
* Seven million Second Life accounts have been registered.
