Although virtual worlds offer teachers the potential to enhance the K-12 curriculum in novel ways, there have been few systematic attempts to instruct teachers about virtual worlds, research their reactions, or track their explorations of these three-dimensional environments. Therefore, this study was designed to respond to the call to help teachers to master digital skills, increase their self-confidence with digital media, and promote educators' use of new technologies in their personal and professional lives. To accomplish this, the first author offered a course based in the virtual world of Second Life (SL) in which the second author participated as a student and a coresearcher. The purpose of this study was to describe teachers' responses to a virtual world for teaching and learning. This study was conducted on the basis of the methodology of teacher research using methods of virtual ethnography. Participants demonstrated high degrees of ability with the digital skills of SL, articulated educational uses for virtual worlds, and identified obstacles to implementation and ways to address those obstacles. This study offers support and a model for others in constructing similar courses for teacher education.

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This article describes, analyzes, and interprets various cultural influences on the representational drawings of young Navajo students, in order to understand their changing cultural viewpoint. The data and drawings were gathered from two elementary art classes in one Navajo public school in northeastern Arizona, as part of an ongoing study. This information is compared to anthropological data gathered on adult Navajo drawings nearly 30 years ago, as well as to some dominant theories on child art. Data reveal students are influenced by Navajo traditional images, classroom teachers' versions of school art, popular art images, pan-Indian influences, and peer copying. Results reveal the persistence of traditional nature imagery, the incorporation of similar schemas and color use with mainstream children, a keen ability to render realistic images and space, and the incorporation of those American things that the Navajo regard as "good for them." Keen drawing abilities appear at a young age among the Navajo because of the high status of the arts, traditional education through observation and demonstration, peer imitation, and male drawing competition.

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