NMC Campus Observer

Interview With Alpine Tendaze: SL from Dubai

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Feb 22, 2007 01:16pm

We are long overdue to pick up the microphones and do another NMC Campus Studio One interview. Today, I talked (via Skype for audio) with Alpine Tendaze, a.k.a. Brent McConnell, who is an teacher with the Dubai American Academy. For me, it was 10:00 am while Brent was calling at 9:00 pm at night, but it was a nice sunny spot where we chatted on NMC Campus.

Interview with Alpine Tendaze

Alpine Tendaze a.k.a. Brent McConnell

We first had contact when Brent emailed us a few weeks ago. He had been using the NMC Campus Sandbox that floated above the main campus, and asked why he could no longer get to it. The problems we were having with the sandbox were due to the main sim having so many prims that it was overfilling, and when this happens, objects suddenly start returning to their owner. because of this issue, we’ve had to decommission the current sandbox, but have no fear… with our land holdings now, we hope in the next few months to have some new sandboxes set up.

When he described what he was building, I was very interested to hear in his own words, what an educator in Dubai was coming up with for using Second Life.

In the interview, Brent talks about the growth of his school, the level of technology sophistication of the students there. Their school is going through a period of rapid expansion (going from 60 students to 1700 in 6 years), and in addition to growth, they experience a turnover rate of 25% per year. They see using Second Life as one of the transition tools for students just coming to Dubai or leaving it for another place.

Brent shared how he got a Creative Teaching Grant to pilot educational activities in Second Life. Dubai American Academy would be the first overseas American school to set up a project in Second Life. If it goes well, they would be looking to get a few islands, mostly in the teen grid. He shared one of the challenges in getting their staff approved via the required background check. Because most of them have experience in multiple countries, what might cost $40 in the US to run a background check is easily 10 to 25 times as much to get the required checks done overseas.

Listen to the rest of the podcast to learn more about Brent’s projects and what it is like to work and teach in Dubai.

Update: We got word that the teens working on this project are blogging the entire process and will be creating a video documentary as well. See the Dubai American Academy’s Digital Media Studies TeenSL Pilot Project. For example, today’s entry includes:

So far we have blueprints of our media center. The center will be made to recreate the old villa that Dubai American Academy was based in. Our team members have learnt basic building and have been exploring the depths of SL and the uses of Second Life as a medium. Meanwhile, our Tech Connections section of the team has successfully promoted SL during tech connections.

Our Second Life team is currently working on:

· Creating a list of elements
· Sketching center on paper
· Building a model on sketch-up
· Collecting electronic resources
· Exploring SL as a medium

Our next steps are to start a solid layout for the media center as well as learning advanced building. This includes our current exercise, which is building a platform that drops a ball on a chain of dominoes.

Story filed under: Studio NMC,Teaching and Learning

See all stories by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine)