Virtual worlds are places where humans interact, and as such they can be environments for research and learning. However, they are complex and mutable in ways that more controlled and traditional environments are not. Although computer-mediated, virtual worlds are multifaceted social systems like the offline world, and choosing to study virtual world phenomena demands as much consideration for the participants, the environment and the researcher as offline. By exploring virtual worlds as places of research and learning, the international practitioners in this book demonstrate the power of these worlds to replicate and extend our arenas of research and learning. They focus on process and outcomes and consider questions that arise from engaging in teaching and research in these spaces, including new approaches to research ethics, internationalization, localization, and collaboration in virtual worlds. This book was originally published as a special issue of Learning, Media & Technology.

Virtual worlds are places where humans interact, and as such they can be environments for research and learning. However, they are complex and mutable in ways that more controlled and traditional environments are not. Although computer-mediated, virtual worlds are multifaceted social systems like the offline world, and choosing to study virtual world phenomena demands as much consideration for the participants, the environment and the researcher as offline.

By exploring virtual worlds as places of research and learning, the international practitioners in this book demonstrate the power of these worlds to replicate and extend our arenas of research and learning. They focus on process and outcomes and consider questions that arise from engaging in teaching and research in these spaces, including new approaches to research ethics, internationalization, localization, and collaboration in virtual worlds.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Learning, Media & Technology.

How has the most revolutionary innovation of our time - the World Wide Web - transformed our world? What does it mean to be a modern family when dinner table conversations take place over smartphone? How has the Web changed our concept of privacy if we now readily share valuable pieces of our personal lives with friends and corporations? Are our Facebook updates and our Twitter witterings inspiring revolution or are they just a symptom of our global narcissism? How has the Web changed our opinions of celebrity, when everyone can have a following or be a paparazzo? What has happened to our most intimate emotions, when love, sex and hate can be mediated by a computer? And what happens to our relationships, our work and our lives if we can't switch off? Social psychologist Aleks Krotoski has spent a decade untangling the effects of the Web on how we work, live and play. In this groundbreaking book, she uncovers how much humanity has - and hasn't - changed because of our increasingly co-dependent relationship with the computer. She tells the story of how the network has become woven into our lives, and what it means to be alive in the Age of the Internet.