world educational settings. Researchers from the MiRTLE project discovered that VW and RW students would naturally and spontaneously interact with one another, which caused the barriers of VW and RW to blur. Instructors reported that teaching in MiRTLE did not disrupt their classes or students’ learning. The implications of these findings were that using MiRTLE may increase the sense of presence for VW students, RW students, and the instructor (Gardner, Scott & Horan, 2008b). The RELATE consortium saw these potential benefits as being in line with our design and development goals, and decided to build a MiRTLE installation locally.
Figure 4. Students with autism take part in virtual social skills training in the iSocial immersive education environment
Using a decommissioned physical server, we installed Ubuntu Linux Server software (http://www.ubuntu.com/server) and followed the instructions on the Open Wonderland website to set up the Open Wonderland server (https://code.google.com/p/openwonderland/wiki/OpenWonderland). We then installed an Axis IP streaming webcam in our physical classroom. Instrumental to our setup was a blog post on the Wonderblog (a blog that 84