The last few years Virtual Reality (VR) based approaches have emerged lately as a new education paradigm. This paper addresses the possibility to cultivate reflection and empathy skills using a VR based framework targeting to maximize the professional development of teachers. Reflection and empathy are considered to be skills of paramount importance for teachers and an integral part of their professional development. The current research aimed to investigate possible differences in cultivating reflection and empathy skills between participants who used a VR system and the control group who were trained in a real classroom without letting the participants see and use the VR system. The results indicate that the participants using the virtual classroom environment scored higher to the reflective and empathy items that the control group that tended to be more undecided. Moreover, the VR system gave the participants the opportunity to enter the students' virtual body and understand the different perspectives affecting at a higher level the reflection process than the control group.

Virtual Reality(VR) is still an emerging technology in terms of recognizing its full potential in education and specifically in teacher education. A key issue of a VR-based approach for teacher training, is the level of presence along with the empathy inflicted on the trainees that will allow them to experience realistic and emotion-rich classroom situations in a virtual environment. This paper describes an experiment that aims to assess the influence of the graphical realism of a virtual classroom to the levels of presence and development of empathy skills for trainee teachers. Moreover, a second objective is to investigate whether there are significant differences between training in a VR classroom and a real physical classroom and how this affects the trainee teacher. The overall conclusion of the experiment is that the design of the VR classroom environment influenced the levels of immersion and presence. Moreover, according to the results there are serious indications that the VR system provided users the immersion necessary for the development of embodied thinking skills and thus of empathy in relation to multiculturalism.

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Virtual Humans are becoming a commodity in computing technology and lately have been utilized in the context of interactive presentations in Virtual Cultural Heritage environments and exhibitions. To this end, this research work underlines the importance of aligning and fine-tuning Virtual Humans’ appearance to their roles and highlights the importance of affective components. Building realistic Virtual Humans was traditionally a great challenge requiring a professional motion capturing studio and heavy resources in 3D animation and design. In this paper, a workflow for their implementation is presented, based on current technological trends in wearable mocap systems and advancements in software technology for their implementation, animation, and visualization. The workflow starts from motion recording and segmentation to avatar implementation, retargeting, animation, lip synchronization, face morphing, and integration to a virtual or physical environment. The testing of the workflow occurs in a use case for the Mastic Museum of Chios and the implementation is validated both in a 3D virtual environment accessed through Virtual Reality and on-site at the museum through an Augmented Reality application. The findings, support the initial hypothesis through a formative evaluation, and lessons learned are transformed into a set of guidelines to support the replication of this work.

A protocol for the representation of traditional crafts and the tools to implement this are proposed. The proposed protocol is a method for the systematic collection and organization of digital assets and knowledge, their representation into a formal model, and their utilization for research, education, and preservation. A set of digital tools accompanies this protocol that enables the online curation of craft representations. The proposed approach was elaborated and evaluated with craft practitioners in three case studies. Lessons learned are shared and an outlook for future work is provided.

Traditional crafts exhibit tangible and intangible dimensions. Intangible dimensions include the practitioner’s gestural know-how in craft practice and have received smaller attention than tangible dimensions in digitization projects. This work presents the process of representation and presentation of the glasswork and is exemplified in the re-creation of a historical object. Following an articulated pipeline approach for data collection, annotation, the crafting process is represented visually and semantically in a way that can be meaningfully presented and utilized in craft training and preservation. The outcomes of the proposed approach were used to implement a Mixed Reality installation. The installation targets craft presentation through an exploration of the workspace, as well as craft training through an interactive experience where users re-enact gestures of a glass master holding a tool and receiving audiovisual feedback on the accuracy of their performance. Preliminary evaluation results show high acceptance of the installation and increased user interest.

This work regards the representation of handicrafts for craft training and demonstration in the environment of an ethnographic heritage museum. The craft of mastic cultivation is chosen as a use case. This paper presents the process of representation and presentation of this craft, following an articulated pipeline approach for data collection, annotation, and semantic representation. The outcomes were used to implement an exhibition that targets the presentation of craft context and craft training, through interactive experiences, mobile applications, and a hands-on training where users reenact the gestures of a mastic cultivator. Preliminary evaluation results show high acceptance for the installation and increased user interest.

In this paper, a representation based on digital assets and semantic annotations is established for Traditional Craft instances, in a way that captures their socio-historic context and preserves both their tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage dimensions. These meaningful and documented experiential presentations are delivered to the target audience through narratives that address a range of uses, including personalized storytelling, interactive Augmented Reality (AR), augmented physical artifacts, Mixed Reality (MR) exhibitions, and the Web. The provided engaging cultural experiences have the potential to have an impact on interest growth and tourism, which can support Traditional Craft communities and institutions. A secondary impact is the attraction of new apprentices through training and demonstrations that guarantee long-term preservation. The proposed approach is demonstrated in the context of textile manufacturing as practiced by the community of the Haus der Seidenkultur, a former silk factory that was turned into a museum where the traditional craft of Jacquard weaving is still practiced.