INTEGRATING VIRTUAL AND REAL WORLDS

The virtual display of real space can be solved by making an on-going video recording of the real inner space including the actions and show it on a designated screen in a virtual space. From a par-ticular angle real space can be shown as if it was live broadcast in a virtual space. Similarly, showing a set video-recording of the virtual space in a real environment can be carried out. In the latter case the virtual environment appears in the real environment from a particular angle. The two technical sets can also be integrated and both angles may be set in a way to integrate the real and the virtual world. In such a situation cameras and microphones would record the action in the real environment and then transmit them into the virtual space. At the same time, actions happening in the virtual envi-ronment are sensed with the help of ’observer avatars’ and transmitted into the real world.

Figure 8.The virtual copy of ELTE Takács Etel lecture hall in Kazinczy street building. On the left the screen shows the live image transmitted from the room.

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ment while we can ’teleport’ ourselves into a virtual environment with the help of fan image project-ed on the wall while in the real world.

While integrating the two environments, the only technical difficulty might be the one or two second delays and difference in time between the simultaneously played video recordings. It might cause problems in case of an activity-based task or project. Furthermore, the sound between the two envi-ronments will need to be regulated with the help of an interposed device without which all the sounds

in the real space are transmitted into the virtual space and with the help of the video connection it arrives back and can be heard again.

Figure 9.The real world ELTE Takács Etel lecture hall in Kazinczy street building.

The screen shows the picture from the virtual environment.

Figure 10.The simplified plan of a video system to integrate virtual and real environments

A successful research project to integrate the real and virtual environments for educational purposes was carried out by the Information Technology Education- and Research Group at ELTE Faculty of Psychology and Pedagogy. There were four sessions in small groups in April 2012, each lasted for 90 minutes.

The participants were full time and part-time MA Andragogy students, between 10-20 in each ses-sion. The lecture given during the sessions was a real one, while the avatar of the lecturer gave a vir-tual presentation simultaneously. One group had attended a course before and thus had some previ-ous experience on using virtual environments, while the others had no relevant experience at all.

Apart from integrating the two environments, the presentations of the sessions together with the live sound was transmitted online, so anybody could have joined the sessions online. Those who attend-ed the real sessions had an opportunity for personal interaction, while in the virtual space there was a chance for interaction with the avatar for those who joined in, or for both at the same time. For online viewers spatial connection was not available, so interaction was ensured through Twitter hash-tag as previously agreed. The lecturer could answer and react to both text-based and audio-based questions coming from the real and the virtual environments including the messages on Twitter. The participants were free to choose whether they wanted to join the process online, virtually or person-ally. An average of two-third of the participants chose personal attendance while only one third of them used the virtual or online option.

After each session the participants received open-ended questions to evaluate the experience anony-mously. All the participants felt that the sessions were successful, interesting and motivating. There was an expressed need for cooperation between the virtual and real, physical environment and felt that there was no sufficient two-way communication, perhaps because of the applied method, ie. the lecture format. Virtual and online participants showed more activity during the session while those present were more active after the session. Those participants, who were present, had no technical devices to share their impressions or questions with the audience. Those who were virtually present Figure 11.The integration of real and virtual environments. The virtual environment can be seen on the left, the real one on the right. The picture shows the view from the virtual environment.

showed more activity via network messages, their twitter messaging showed a surprisingly high rate.

Half of the participants mentioned that the unusual integration of the two environments was very dis-tracting at the beginning. Noises were infiltrating through from the real into the virtual space, and unexpected things that happened in the virtual space disturbed those who were personally present in the real environment. When integrating the two environments it was easy to almost mirror the two spaces with transmissions from an almost identical angle, but it was difficult to position the teacher (lecturer) in the real space. At the same time the lecturer had to attend to the numerous technical equipment, keep eye-contact with those present, communicate through the avatar and also appear in the virtual environment. In order to be able to carry out all these tasks at the same time the lecturers failed to find a suitable position in the lecture room. Those four lecturers who took part in the research found it very unusual to manage all the technical equipment in addition to lecturing and communi-cating through the different channels at the same time. The amount of interaction during the lecture decreased, which thus enabled the lecturers to carry out an unexpected teacherly task. Since it was a new experiment, the teacher turned out to be the only person in the process who had to be present both in the physical, real world and with the avatar in the virtual environment at the same time. This required an unusual amount of division of attention on the teacher’s part. Despite all difficulties our experiment proved that with the help of complex technical solutions it is possible to carry out an edu-cational process where participants are present in the real, virtual and online environment.