More of Michael's summary

And so in my first year I explore and wrote about distance learning and engaged in the ongoing dialogue about the value of a college education without the college experience. My arrogance quickly gave way to a scholarly examination of the problems to which distance learning was a solution, and I began to nurture a hope that the features of a learning community that were inherent in the on-campus experience could perhaps be available to those students who chose to pursue their degrees online. I found that the notion of an online learning community was a robust topic of academic research and conversation, and that many educators believed that technology would provide the leverage to offer the essential characteristics of community and collegiality that prompted young students to be truly engaged in their learning.
I was privileged and pleased to be able to work with my concerns about the apparent lack of a sense of place and presence in a student experience in my graduate practicum, and became aware of the myriad of issues around the use of space and campus design. I learned that four years of undergraduate education on a physical campus did not necessarily provide the benefits of immediacy and personal contact that has been a part of the narrative of the “college years”, especially for the growing non-traditional student population.
So it was with some trepidation and curiosity that I chose to examine educating in virtual worlds as a solution to what I had perceived as handicaps to engagement in learning. My image of distance learning as two-dimensional, asynchronous, and private was quickly dissipated as I began to discover the emerging educational tools that Web 2.0 and the concurrent innovation in instructional design were offering teachers and students.
I heard about Second Life in 2005 on a late Saturday night drive home from a DJ gig, and found myself enthralled by the image of a full-blown virtual reality, with shops and homes, museums, libraries and universities that were engaged in teaching: in three dimensions, in a place, with synchronous communication and an acute awareness of others. Three years later I have no regrets that I chose this phenomena as the subject of my most time-consuming and immersive educational experience to date. This project has been an adventure. I have learned more than I could imagine from literally hundreds of teachers and students whose teaching and learning occur online, in virtual learning communities on Second Life.