SL’s co-founder Cory Ondrejka has spoken, and education is blazing a trail through Second Life, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“In my view the academy has been blazing the trail of adoption of virtual worlds far more than gamers or industry,” he said at a recent conference at Case Western Reserve University that was also shown in SL.

Ondrejka also argued that 3D virtual environments will catch on in educational settings because that setup closely mirrors that of a classroom and that humans are more trusting of a visual representation of a person rather that just, say, text. He also said that Second Life may not even be the category killer when it comes to education in SL.

“The challenges with Second Life is it has significant technical challenges for use,” he said. “You can’t assume that your students are going to be able to run Second Life within the school’s network infrastructure.”