For the past several years, faculty and staff at Middlesex Community college have been experimenting with "virtual worlds" as a teaching and learning tool.

As defined by Wikipedia...

A virtual world is a genre of online community that often takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment, through which users can interact with one another and use and create objects[1]. Virtual worlds are intended for its users to inhabit and interact, and the term today has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual environments, where the users take the form of avatars visible to others graphically

Today MCC faculty and staff make use of an island in the virtual world Second Life. This space is accessible only by invitation. Faculty show students and staff how to communicate and collaborate using avatars.