Virtual environments, through blurring and dismantling boundaries between the real and the fantastic, learning and playing, entertainment and information, work and leisure, etc., challenge educators to critically reflect on their own assumptions regarding the social functions of such boundaries and the social roles and identities formed by those boundaries. For example, what is the role of imagination or the aesthetic features of a setting on learning? How do the roles of educator and entertainer relate to one another in different learning contexts? How can play and fantasy be used to motivate learning and engagement? How can the suspension of commonsense notions of reality in such environments be used to further pedagogical objectives? How can the navigational metaphor that shapes the world be used to foster exploration and risk-taking, if desired?

A further issue to explore is how experiences and contexts in AW are imbued with "accents" of reality. What features make the interactions and activities engaged in feel real or authentic? Is a feeling of realness or of real-world relevance in a virtual learning experience critical to the actual learning that occurs? How and why do interactions with others feel or seem genuine, foster trust and contribute to the creation of community or to effective collaboration?

Successful and responsible learning in virtual environments requires developing a number of critical multi-media literacies, that is, learning to identify the play among representations of reality, the workings of figurative tropes, how multiple media work together to create meanings and experiences. The ways in which technology mediates experiences should never become transparent or taken-for-granted. Responsible designing, instructing, learning and communicating in such environments requires that we continue to critically question the social, cultural and psychological dynamics that go on within them.