MMORPGs for e e Learning

Can the technologies and design principles associated with online gaming support valid forms of ee-learning? What's the other e in ee?

"Historically, electronic and experiential learning have been unique and separate domains of study and practice. The joining of the two e’s in “ee-learning” provides an opportunity to define and organize an emerging pedagogy that brings together these two domains."
Jim Morrison the Editor-in-Chief of Innovate

In their case study, Joey Lee and Christopher Hoadley describe how educators in a summer technology enrichment camp employed two massively multiplayer online games to educate their students about cultural stereotypes, design principles, and how technology can serve as a mediator for different cultures. When the students adopted the identities of online characters with genders and characteristics different than their own, they experienced life as "the other" and soon discovered themselves receiving significantly different treatment from others in unanticipated ways. This eye-opening experience left the students with a more nuanced, less essentialist perspective of diversity, and they drew upon this perspective to design a series of Web sites and projects designed to promote cross-cultural understanding.
(See http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=348