Answer to question number 2...
"Was your group meeting in world different, better or worse than the meeting in Blackboard Vista’s chat groups that your instructors set up for this course? "

It was certainly different. None of our team members had experience with an in world meeting. It seemed to us that meetings that include dialog only, may be equally successful in a chat room or a telephone conference call as they are in world. Business meetings that include presentations can be held successfully using one of the various desktop sharing packages available or video teleconference although Second life is potentially free. Educational meetings where a quality virtual environment maybe toured and discussed would be very effective in Second Life. We found our initial experience to be rather cumbersome as we dealt with unfamiliarity of controlling our avatars.