Pretending to learn

Great news for everyone who has used Second Life to escape from the everyday world of work to do things like, er, exactly the same things as they do in the outside world.

The Inter-Life project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), has developed 3D virtual worlds in which the avatars of schoolchildren can do exciting things like film-making and photography, for little more than 10 times the cost of giving them a camera and showing them how to do it in real life. Doing stuff that doesn’t really exist helps them develop organisational skills, the ESRC claims this week.

So do not fear for the future of the global economy: the developed world might have crumbling finances and crippling debt, but we’re solving the problem by building a world for our children which means they can pretend it never happened.