Conclusion

It is now ten years since we witnessed the peak of popularity in the educational use of virtual worlds in higher education and the subsequent decline in interest as educators came to the realisation that much of the hype was based on over-inflated expectations. Yet far from languishing in the “trough of disillusionment”, as the authors of this collection show, virtual worlds have now come of age as educators continue to explore the pedagogical affordances of these technologies for engaging students in authentic activities designed to improve their technical and employability skills.