Virtual humans vs. anthropomorphic robots for education: how can they work together?

The IT society is more and more dealing with the formation and use of instruments of interactions that can create virtual realities or re-create real environmental situation. The richness and variety of users' interactions can go far beyond the simple sensorial use of the virtual realities. It is now possible to activate behavioral and cognitive learning attitudes, just by taking into account the various components that play a role in the human-computer interactions with a specific care for the sensorial perceptions of the users. Recent technological developments open new perspectives for the cooperation between learners, virtual humans and anthropomorphic robots. This paper analyses, discusses and highlights the added value to the social awareness in a learning community that the properly integration of the 3 mentioned types of actors can produce. A set of directions are also identified for the convergence and integration of the robotic appliances and systems with virtual humans in various educational situations