Abstract:

The Estacio de Sá University is carrying out a research on interactive telepresence applied to social and educational inclusion, especially for people with special needs (PSN). The research is motivated by the global need for inclusive education in accordance with the guidelines of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which highlights the role of socialization in school. This research proposes a telepresence room that uses updated technology and concepts to create telepresence walls: live-size people/objects, multi-directional sound, movement sensor, wide-angle lens, wide screens and projections. When registered users enter in the telepresence room they are identified through radio-frequency identification (RFID) and the room - including environment, gadgets and software - is setup according to their preset preferences and special needs. To promote higher educational socialization, interactions between teachers, students and community are considered essential in the teaching-learning processes. Natural user interfaces (NUI) such as voice control, multi-touch and gestures are combined with traditional accessible resources including text-to-speech (TTS), magnification, mouse and keyboard navigation in order to bestow the most options possible to interact with technology, doesn’t matter the special needs, age or culture of the interacting person. Mixed reality, both in augmented reality and augmented virtuality forms, are pedagogically applied as elements to stimulate perceptions. Ecological responsibility is also present in the rooms through the application of the 5 R's philosophy - refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and responsible behavior - for safe and sustainable waste management: Materials, lighting, air-conditioning, waste sorting are carefully planned for better sustainability. The results are proper remote and present sustainable environments for teaching-learning activities where inclusion, interactions, socialization and rich perceptions are pedagogically important to bring together many different profiles.

Keywords:

Telepresence, Social-Educational Inclusion, Mixed Reality.