vAcademia -- Educational Virtual World with 3D Recording

In this paper, we present a new approach to educational activities in 3D virtual worlds. This approach is based on a new vision of content and learning process in virtual worlds and related to a new platform called vAcademia. This virtual world is designed and developed specially for educational purposes, and it has an integrated set of tools for a number of learning activities. The main original feature of vAcademia is 3D recording, which allows capturing dynamically everything in a given location in the virtual world. A 3D recording looks like a live virtual class providing students with a collaboration space and giving a sense of presence. In such a manner, vAcademia supports a new type of digital content - 3D recording or virtcast, which is created based on synchronous activities and opens new possibilities to explore. In this paper, we present the functionality, scenarios of use, and challenges of the educational virtual world vAcademia.