Sitting in the front row, I'm looking casual, cool and surprisingly female. I appear to be the first to arrive for the conference but am soon joined by a rather glamorous redhead. We sit in silence. Nothing happens except that her legs change colour occasionally - green, purple and back to normal, or what passes for normal in these parts.

It's my first time in Second Life and I feel rather awkward. Far from shedding my inhibitions in the virtual world, I seem to have acquired even more, despite the fetching spiky hair and tight jeans.

It's Marc Thompson's fault. As a member of the Ethnic Minority Achievement Service (Emas) in Islington, north London, and an enthusiast for the education possibilities of Second Life, he has inveigled me - in the guise of Citizen Diplomat Jolly Emas - into attending the Education Without Boundaries conference he has helped to organise.

I (she?) join Thompson - or rather his suave avatar Barnsbury Blanco - in the Emas centre in Second Life (the Babel Tower), where I have a chance to practise key skills - such as walking and turning round - before getting into a social situation. Fortunately, he insists that I practise sitting down. It's a surprisingly difficult operation to sit roughly where you intend, and facing the right direction.

Bizarre and familiar

We teleport to Annenberg Island, where he leaves me to find a seat at the conference. (I've no idea what is happening but teleporting seems easier than walking. Indeed, it was heartening to see a couple of the speakers miss their seats when they stepped down from the podium.)

Once the conference gets going it is an odd mix of the bizarre and the familiar. It's like scores of education conferences I've attended over the years - even the decor is the naff, over-elaborate kind you get in conference hotels - but when I at last manage to work out how to look around me I realise a man two rows back has a snake round his neck. Is it rude to call attention to this in the virtual world?

Among the 50 avatars present there are plenty from Europe and one from Turkey, but the speakers are all North American so the event feels rather American. In the subsequent discussion, Chris Keesey, of Ohio University (or his avatar, Tanbou Ogg), argues that Second Life can be genuinely international and break down language and cultural barriers. "I've spoken a lot more French [in Second Life] than ever before," he insists.

His university, which started a Second Life campus in 2006, now has a total of 10 islands there and is taking the pedagogy of the virtual world seriously. (According to Linden Lab, which runs Second Life, there are more than 5,000 educators operating "in-world", owning more than 1,000 regions.) For instance, Ohio University staff are creating games for schools in which children might run a virtual kiosk to learn about food choices.

Sue Shick (Second Life alias Susanne Patrono), of Case Western Reserve University, describes using Second Life to recruit students by inviting them to the online campus that recreates a large part of its home city of Cleveland. The university's dental school uses an avatar in the virtual world instead of an actor when students practise their interviewing skills to elicit patients' symptoms.

At Loyalist College, near Toronto, nearly one in 10 of the 3,500 students are making use of Second Life in their studies, after starting with 25 journalism students two years ago, we are told by Ken Hudson (Kenny Hubble as he is known in Second Life). The college set up a simulation of a Canadian border post for students training to work in immigration control - since the 9/11 attacks students have not been allowed to interview passengers as part of their work experience. Most of the students were sceptical to start with, admits Hudson, but were won round after 12 hours of simulation, and there was a 28% improvement in their grades for interview skills. "They felt they were there," he says. His colleagues are starting to consider whether to distinguish at all between students' virtual and real experiences.

Trying to scribble notes back in the real world while listening to the speakers and keeping track of messages between members of the audience felt strange, but I was beginning to acclimatise to the virtual and look around more. By the time Rik Panganiban (as Rik Riel) took to the podium - or rather stood to one side because his bat-winged avatar was too short to be seen behind it - I felt confident enough to try to get a better view.

As he describes his Global Kids project in New York which seeks to involve young people in "learning by doing", tapping into their interests in music, theatre, computer games and so on, I get adventurous, click on the controls and find myself floating upwards. Riel's voice fades as I waft above the hall and out into the sky above the island. What if I can't get back? Wrestling with the controls like a demented Biggles, I eventually manage to swoop back down into the hall. Has anyone noticed? Or was that a virtual out-of-body experience?

Informal networking

After a short discussion, the conference breaks up for some informal networking - often the most useful point of real life events and one that would not be reproduced by a video conference call. But, unnerved by Jolly's wayward flitting, I feel inhibited and realise I don't know how to begin a chat in Second Life. Thompson comes to my rescue like a tactful host, but I feel I've blown the opportunity.

Thompson is delighted with the conference. Demonstrating that it is possible to get an international gathering in the same room at almost no cost was really the point, rather than the content of the talks, and he feels that it has been shown to be an effective medium - and received good feedback from the other participants.

Getting used to moving around and communicating in Second Life takes a minimum of four hours, he reckons, but he is evangelical about the possibilities of using it for teaching and engaging the kind of excluded youngsters that Emas works with. A young person can start again with an avatar they create. "If you have low self-esteem and have been excluded, you don't have to take that history with you," he says. And as for classroom discipline in the virtual world, "if someone is playing up, you just mute them".

"I've never said it is the future, but it has huge potential," he says, adding with a note of caution: "There's a long way to go to prove the actual benefits for education."

Would I go back to the virtual world? Yes, though maybe I'll wait for Third Life.