Immersive Education is a multimillion-dollar project devoted to build virtual-reality software exclusively for education within commercial and nonprofit fantasy spaces like Second Life. The project combines interactive three-dimensional graphics, Web cameras, Internet-based telephony, and other digital media. Some critics have complained that promoting video games in schools and colleges dumbs down education. Yet Immersive Education has gathered an impressive roster of backers. In addition to Boston College and Harvard University, its supporters include Amherst College, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology, Japan's University of Aizu, the Israeli Association of Grid Technologies, NASA, Sun Microsystems, the City of Boston, and the New Media Consortium, a higher-education technology group. The Immersive Education project is about to get additional financial support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which promotes entrepreneurship. The foundation has agreed to provide $750,000 to the Federation of American Scientists for the development of online games and virtual environments. Part of the money will go toward developing Immersive Education software's technical specifications and documentation.