A lot of developments are underway to make 3D environments like Second Life available in regular browsers. Many teachers have been experimenting with programmes like Second Life and Active Worlds, with varying degrees of success. In theory they offer a lot of potential for role-play, character investigation, communication strategies and simply to encourage contact with native speakers. But in practice the need to install additional software, the extensive hardware requirements, inappropriate content, and many other problems, have limited their usefulness. Google’s new 3D environment that runs within a regular browser (IE and Firefox only at this point) may change that. There are other companies developing similar environments. Although their everyday use is a while away yet, these are interesting developments for those of us keen to encourage students to interact with native speakers in an engaging environment where a greater degree of contextual information is available than through, for example, online forums or chatrooms.

On a related note, have a look at alternative browsers such as www.spacetime.com and www.piclens.com. These allow you to browse the internet by walking through a gallery of pictures of images of websites. At some point in the (probably not too distant) future (elements of) these will become mainstream and significantly change the way we interact with information (both online and offline, insofar as the two will not have merged). Especially for visual learners this will be a huge advantage. I sometimes use Spacetime with language learners who appreciate the visual feedback to find the information they need.

About 3D browsers: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/17/more-browser-based-virtual-worlds-the-electric-sheep-company-releases-webflock/
Google’s 3D browser: code.google.com/apis/earth/

Spacetime: http://www.spacetime.com

Piclens: http://www.piclens.com