Abstract: An educational system consists of developing a virtual environment accessible by students and teachers through video game-like experiences. Each of the teachers and students is assigned an avatar that is uniquely controlled by the associated student or teacher. The students manipulate their avatars within the virtual environment, resolving issues, solving problems, and learning along the way. Each student has a student portfolio indicating the student's progress and deficiencies as assessed by the student's activities through the avatar in the virtual environment. A virtual learning core communicates with remote educational organizations having virtual environments and is in selective communication with each. The virtual learning core includes a database for receiving, storing, assessing and transferring data and student and teacher interface modules in interconnection with the database to allow communication among students and with a teacher within the virtual environments.