One of the wonders of the online world is stumbling often on to something that could not have existed quite recently. These are things that have emerged or been created within months or a year or two — maybe a little longer. An example is what have come to be called virtual environments. The website VirtualEnvironments.info has collected 12 VEs already, and one supposes that as months go by the list will grow. Each is reviewed and placed in one or more category. For the present back-to-school season, the descriptions of 5 virtual environments in the “education” category should be useful to teachers. How very few years ago the notion of a virtual environment where learning could happen only existed on Star Trek’s holideck.