Dr. M,
I am aware there are several universities that have setup f2f classrooms in the Second Life space. Students walk down the street, walk into the building, then walk into the classroom (virtually) to attend a f2f, synchronous, class session. This aspect provides for physical proximity to be removed as a barrier for class attendance while maintaining many of the benefits of f2f learning. These are interesting times. Like you, I expect the technology to further propagate distributed learning environments.
