Collaborative virtual environments for desktop PCs. are inherently interesting to use and to develop, and provide motivating and challenging capstone projects for capable students to undertake. From an educational perspective, collaboration in virtual three-dimensional spaces using avatars also adds some interesting dimensions to student learning. This paper reports upon a series of developments, in which collaborative virtual environments have been applied since 2001 to support research into global virtual teams. Specific insights relevant to educators and developers have been gained through a series of local and international collaborative trials, using these 3D environments.