In July of 2008, sixteen teens in Chicago and New York collaborated on a summer camp project that featured dinosaur bones, Tanzanian hip-hop and a virtual world. Instead of making a real-world trek to Tanzania to study paleontology and scientific field research, a team of Global Kids met virtually in Teen Second Life. "It felt like we were working side-by-side with scientists in the field," says one of the teen participants, describing how the group used digital media to learn about real-life paleontologists on a fossil hunt in Tanzania.

In a Global Kids video describing the I Dig Tanzania summer camp, one of the participants tells viewers, "A virtual world made it possible for us to go on an expedition of a lifetime, with a virtual fossil dig created just for us." Educators, parents and youth may have heard of virtual worlds, but for the uninitiated, the concept takes some explaining. In the I Dig Tanzania video, avatars interact with each other in a Global Kids-designated area of Teen Second Life. "You move around using an avatar, a 3D character that looks like a regular human," explains one of the teens, as images of human-like avatars and more fanciful creatures move around the virtual landscape. While certainly there is a strangeness about virtual worlds, after awhile a kind of ordinariness sets in: people appear, they interact, they communicate, they build, they change their appearances, and they disappear.

To communicate with the paleontologists, teens used videos and satellite phones to ask questions, "How much of a fossil fragment do you have to find before you can identify what the actual creature is?" Real-life fossil hunters were able to answer from thousands of miles and two continents away, "If you find just a rib, for example, it's very hard to identify what mammal that rib came from. If you find a tooth, it can tell you what kind of animal you're looking at. It's a treasure hunt -- we're seeing things that haven't seen the light of day for hundreds of millions of years." Back in Teen Second Life, the teens recreated dinosaurs from fossils they found, using knowledge they gained from the paleontologists, and displayed them in virtual exhibits.

Fossils and virtual worlds might seem an odd couple, but this kind of real-virtual matchmaking will only increase in 21st century education. Barry Joseph, Director of Online Leadership Program at Global Kids, says, "The growth of youth involvement with virtual worlds is predicted to surpass 50% over the next few years." Where youth are involved, educators are sure to be close by. Joseph understood this when Global Kids won a 2007 HASTAC/MacArthur Digital Media and Learning award to help launch RezEd: The Hub for Learning and Virtual Worlds.

After launching RezEd.org in 2008, the social network was quickly populated with educators, researchers, librarians, parents and others interested in a virtual world community of practice. By October of 2008, RezEd.org had 1,252 members, hosted 60 videos, announced 55 events, and was home to 32 member-created special groups. After growing the community, RezEd compiled a seasonal report that highlighted discussions and emerging themes, including a section on ethics in virtual worlds. With such a new medium being used as a learning tool, a focus on ethics is a hot topic that interests anyone trying to understand virtual worlds.

In the I Dig Tanzania summer camp, students were part of a guided experience, using avatars to bridge gaps of distance and understanding with the help of educators and mentors. Given how easy it is to be invisible and anonymous online, virtual worlds can sometimes raise ethical questions -- for youth and adults alike. Like anything that we do with kids, positive mentoring and best practices play an important role, themes that run through RezEd's community.

As RezEd member and Arizona State University Professor James Paul Gee notes, "Most Americans don't spend much time with people who are not like them. Today's public sphere, where Americans come together across class and racial divides, has gotten smaller and smaller as we have economically stratified ourselves into many classes." In virtual worlds, as Gee observes, we must "confront the full array of diversity. All of a sudden you must cross lines of class, race, country, interests, and politics." As more and more people log into virtual worlds, we need to develop ethical guidelines for new (and age-old) situations made possible by 21st century technology.

In other virtual world scenarios, educators are reaching out to underserved youth. Technology Education Librarian Kelly Czarnecki of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County Library volunteers in a teen jail, where she teaches incarcerated youth how to build, explore and communicate in Teen Second Life. In a RezEd podcast, Czarnecki talks about her experience with the youth and how the program was able to launch. Through these conversations, the RezEd community can build a library of knowledge about best practices and how to use technology for social reform.

RezEd community members are also using virtual worlds for immersive language learning. Amira Fouad, Program Manager with the Global Kids Online Leadership Program, says that these members have really made the RezEd hub their own, "We knew about virtual worlds and youth because that's what Global Kids is about, so the language and learning group -- dozens and dozens joined and really made it their own." As educators mine Second Life and other virtual worlds for its communication and interaction potential, new models of learning are appearing. Being able to engage native-language speakers through their avatars creates all kinds of learning opportunities for those who want to practice a second language with real people.

Of course, like any technology, we must also show restraint.

As Gee writes, "Every technology can be used for evil or good, and as we build virtual worlds with all the possibilities we have been talking about, we need to remember this." Barry Joseph of Global Kids explored these two sides of virtual worlds in the RezEd seasonal report released in October of 2008. In an essay, Joseph imagined what he would say to members of Congress about virtual worlds. "Generation after generation seems to go through its own ?cycles of outrage,'" he writes, " whether with the waltz, pulp novels, comic books, rap music, or most recently with video games and online social networks. It is understandable to feel uncomfortable when confronting a new medium that changes, for lack of a better phrase, our sense of self."

Misconceptions raised by virtual worlds such as Second Life are not uncommon, but Joseph reminds us that, "When you speak to your child on the phone, are your hearing their ?second voice?' No, you hear their voice, as they would claim that reproduction of voice as his or her own. The phone is not our ?second voice' any more than photos are our ?second image' or emails our ?second handwriting.' That is YOU on the phone, in the photo, or through the email."

We need to look at virtual worlds like any other technology, and see the humanity behind it that makes it work. "Virtual worlds are not escapist fantasies but a new way to extend our lives and our sense of self. How can virtual worlds expand our lives in new ways," asks Joseph, "What social affects arise as a result, and are these results desirable?" It will be communities of practice like RezEd and pioneering groups like Global Kids that will help determine the answers.