It's a world of possibilities

That's cyberspace for you. And it is here that more than two-thirds of Branch's classes for the masters course she is doing have taken place. Up to three times a week, her 3D animated alter ego has met those of her tutor and fellow students on Edinburgh University's cyber campus. They discuss ideas by typing in their characters' words, and fly across the cyberworld together to meet others with the same academic interests.

It is known as Second Life, an internet-based virtual world at least 6 million people have signed up to, where you can choose your appearance, age, gender and colour. And its use as a learning, teaching and research tool is to be debated at a conference in London on Friday run by the educational charity Eduserv.

Whether it has pedagogical power or not, UK universities are certainly starting to show an interest. Fifteen have already spent several thousand pounds on "land" in Second Life, its parent company Linden Lab reckons. Oxford University's computing service is running a six-month trial for university members. Leicester University bought "land" three weeks ago. Edinburgh and others beat them to it.

Harvard law school, quick to realise that cyberspace was less intimidating than real life, has built a court room in Second Life for students to practise their advocacy skills.

But the number of UK academics using it for teaching and research is still thought to be in the hundreds rather than the thousands. "You get the odd interested lecturer or department, but I suspect that, by and large, it is not part of a university's strategy to have a presence on Second Life," says Andy Powell, head of development at Eduserv and organiser of this week's conference. Not yet, maybe. For students who are disabled, struggle to communicate, or simply lack confidence in the classroom, however, it could be just the thing.

"We are hoping to discover that Second Life is an environment in which every student feels comfortable about taking part in academic discussions," says Gilly Salmon, professor of e-learning at the University of Leicester. "Since you can choose your appearance, there are not going to be the usual discrimination issues of the face-to-face environment. And the student and the teacher are on the same level."

"You are hiding behind your avatar [3D character]," says Branch. "It makes you feel more confident and involved. I love the fact that it's so easy to create the person you have always dreamed of being. I made myself look fitter, and designed my look as I wish I could be in real life."

Its fans say Second Life engages distance learners in a way that email, instant messaging and chatrooms do not quite manage. "It replaces that sense of immediacy that you have in real life," says Dr Rory Ewins, who lectures in Second Life for Edinburgh University's MSc course in e-learning. "You can use movements as well as words to get students' attention, and you can take the class with you to another area of the cyberworld. You can very clearly see who is contributing to the discussions and paying attention, and who is not.

Andrew Sides, a student on the course, agrees: "It can bring distance learners together in what feels like a closer physical relationship than other online technologies. I think that collaborative activities are possible in Second Life that aren't in other online learning situations."

Academics are also finding Second Life can help research. With the right command, anything can be built, from a molecular structure to an animated film to an architect's plan for a town hall. "Researchers are creating 3D objects and are able to walk around them as avatars," says Joanna Scott, an analyst in web publishing for Nature publishing group. "I see particular applications for genetic coding, mathematics, chemistry and architecture. After all, even top mathematicians find it difficult to visualize certain structures. I think Second Life has the potential to be really, really important for the future of research."

But before everyone gets too excited, they should be aware of the difficulties. Second Life is bandwidth-hungry, so unless you have a top-range computer, it is not practical. Not all university computer labs will be up to it.

And before you take part in this parallel universe, your character has to be trained to walk, fly, even get dressed. Once they have been trained, they can still make mistakes. You may find characters suddenly shedding their clothes and flying to another part of cyberspace - an unfortunate error to make in front of students.

"If you have a class that is functioning perfectly well in a face-to-face environment, there is no need to take the class into Second Life. It is early days, and at the moment we are comparing it with email communication and MSN rather than face-to-face exchanges," says Ewins.

"One of the things that worries me about it as an educational tool is that it is owned by a commercial provider, not the university. So the degree of control we have over its content is limited," says David Harrison, chair of the University Colleges and Information Systems Association.

But Powell is convinced virtual worlds will play some part in the delivery of education in the future. "I don't think it will be Second Life in its current form," he says. "We will see competing offers, and possibly universities running their own virtual worlds."

Hamish Macleod, a senior lecturer in Edinburgh University's school of education, has other reservations. "I have to ask myself whether our students expect to find their senior colleagues in these virtual spaces, which they may feel to be their own preserve," he says. "Is it like bumping into an aged uncle in a disco?"