About to conquer a virtual world? Starting a successful business or other activity in virtual worlds requires special knowledge on how virtual worlds work, who are involved, what are the prospects and benefits, and what are the keys to succeed. I have conducted research on virtual worlds and virtual realities, their use and usability since late 1990's in education and other organisational contexts, awarded a PhD.

Kurssilla syvennytään Second Life –virtuaalimaailman käyttöön käytännön opetus ja koulutustyössä. Second Life –ympäristö nähdään kurssilla välineenä ja pääpaino on tämän ympäristön tehokkaassa ja tarkoituksenmukaisessa hyödyntämisessä. Kurssilla painotetaan henkilökohtaisen tuen ja ohjauksen merkitystä sekä ryhmässä oppimista ja ryhmältä oppimista.

The third Learning and Research in Second Life workshop was organised on wednesday, October 7 at Internet Research 10.0 conference in Milwaukee by me, Kim Holmberg and Terry Beaubois. The day was very intense and we had a very productive continuous seven hour discussion that touched multiple aspects of education and research in the virtual world of Second Life.

We have been working with my colleague Kim Holmberg on developing Second Life based courses and research at our home university. The feedback from the classes held so far has been unexpectedly positive. The environment does clearly offer interesting avenues in higher education. Some coverage of the project can be found in Swedish in the