There is a piece about a Business class examining the value of virtual incubation within the Second Life environment posted originally here at Sloan-C
I found it through Educause Connect – the article is dated Oct. 6 2008, and entitled:
B-Schools in Second Life: It’s more than just Fun and Games; It’s the Confluence of Playing, Learning, and Working — by Vivek Bhatnagar, Vice President, Townsend Polymer Services & Information
The prospect of virtual classrooms is intriguing, particularly in the context of international participation. It is also a fascinating way of imagining innovative configurations of institutional spaces.
Here is an interesting (I think) quote/excerpt (go to the link above to read the entire article):
[Note “SL is the common way of referring to the 3D Virtual World Second Life]
“(H)ow can SL be used for business education? Some time back, Berry Beattie, a lecturer in leadership and organizational behavior in an interview with Jan Kingsley, Director of the Corporate Services at European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), responded to the above question with this answer: “There are over 200 educational institutions—mostly American universities—and another over 3,000 members in the Educator’s list present in SL. All of them are seeking ways to best use the technology for educational purposes. What is interesting to me is that the primary educational groups are in health, technology, the arts and social sciences. Apart from INSEAD and Boconni, I am not aware of any business school with an established presence (in SL). And yet the potential to use SL for business and management education is really major: here we have a global society with an average age of around 38, a real economy to experiment with, a wealth of real social relationships to establish, a technology which allows a cohort of students from around the world to interact synchronously, and an environment which itself fosters innovation and creativity. In addition, it provides a really cost-effective way to provide tutor-student interaction. So, the potential is enormous.”
Quoted from an interview with Barry Beattle found here
It could be interesting to try and imagine courses or research projects in International Cultural Literacy, for instance, in this context.
