The university where I did undergrad conducted "Virtual Biology Lab" in Second Life as recently as Spring 2015. A friend of mine got stuck in one of these fake classes. His description made it sound like a terrible excuse for a learning environment, clicking a single button to magically perform dissections while constantly battling connectivity issues.<p>Of course, they still charge students the full lab fee, as if they were actually purchasing supplies.
I'm not a Second Life apologist, but it seems like (from comments on the OP) that some of these environments are successful, just maybe not on a full-time basis.
Eastern Carolina University sports teams are "The Pirates", hence the pirate ship. Their color is purple so I am sad to see they didn't make a Purple Pirate Ship.<p>An hour down the road from there: if NC State, UNC Chapel Hill, and Duke had had Second Life campuses, I can only imagine the level of trolling that would have taken place since rivalries are not mellow.
I always felt that these environments could be ported and utilized for some other type of VR game. A cross between Lost and Westworld. Trapped in a virtual world, your being hunted by some type of rogue AI.... (something like that).