Second Life, Video Games, and the Social Text

The prospect is sublime. Off the coast of the mainland are islands—in fact, sweeping archipelagoes—inhabited by educators and students. The residents have built massive modern classrooms, high-rises, clock towers, conference rooms, amphitheaters, auditoriums, and libraries among the evergreens, campuses with spacious lawns. To get to one of these islands, you can go directly from certain information kiosks or portals. Or, if you know the way and don't run into any invisible Plexiglas walls extending far up into the sky, you can just levitate, tilt into the wind, and fly there, while the landscape scrolls along below you like a map (which it is).