Virtual Education: Enst Bretagne

In the northwestern area of Second Life dozens of Universities and Colleges are under construction, some in an advanced state, some still in conception stage. Today I visited the island called Telecom Bretagne, just between the University of Oxford and the Technical University of Delft.

The island is home to the Enst Bretagne, A prestigious graduate engineering schooland international research centre in the field of information technologies.

"Created in 1977, ENST Bretagne is one of the most prestigious graduate engineering schools ("Grandes Ecoles") in France. It is a public institution, under the aegis of the Ministry for Industry and is a member of the Group of Telecommunications Schools (GET). The college trains future professionals for careers in industry, services and research."

The island consists of various buildings ranging from classroom to sports centrew with research, information and meetingrooms in between. It's not a build that will win an architectural prize, but it's functionality that counts.

Originally the intention was to build a virtual representation of the Real Life campus, but that was soon abandoned as the real campus is about 5 times bigger than the virtual island.

Marie-Catherine Mouchot, the Head of Communications was kind enough to provide me with some details on the build and its intended use.

"We want to use it for both teaching and meeting. Our alumni already use it for their own meetings and we have 40% of foreign students and it's a good way to get in contact with them prior to their venue in France. We also want to use it for our students registerd in continuing education programmes so that they can get in conctact after the teaching sessions and exchange experience with the other students."

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Telecom%20Bretagne/128/128/0