Second Life as an Educational Tool

Second Life has the potential to be useful in aiding students who take online courses. Teachers and students can meet "face to face" in these types of virtual settings which can mimic the feeling of meeting in a classroom. Students can also learn by interacting with different students from their school or from schools across the world with whom they otherwise would never have contact.
Virtual worlds like Second Life make meeting more enjoyable. To some, meeting in a chat room is just plain boring, and often the student logs in and then does other work instead of participating. By chatting in a virtual world, the student may feel as if they are actually present and that others will know if they are not engaged in the meeting.
I think that virtual worlds will be used more often in the future as an educational tool. Society has adapted and even sometimes gravitates towards distance learning. This being the case, I think that educators will look for more alternatives to classroom meetings. If this happens, the virtual worlds may add virtual classrooms to their worlds. Maybe we will read more about this in the Meatheads future blog posts.