Comparing Student Acceptance of LMS tools, Web conferencing and Virtual Environments

Over 400 graduate students completed a series of distance education orientation activities including a Second Life exercise.  We gathered surveys about their willingness to accept the tools as compared with a learning management system and synchronous Web conferencing.  Finally we looked at the impact of gender, age, vision problems and exposure to different game genres, Web 2.0 and the real-time web.  We mapped the data against dozens of previous studies about other tools.  The new instructional design model will inform future curriculum innovations by educators and technical consultants who are already familiar with LMS and Web conferencing tools.