Machinima for immersive and authentic learning in higher education

The use of virtual worlds have been well documented as a space for immersive participation by students when learning authentic tasks that can be difficult, if not impossible, to undertake in the real world. They have also been used in order to grasp important concepts through machinima (inworld video). A pilot project, "computers@armidale", explores the use of machinima to explain important concepts in a first year accountancy degree. Often, these concepts are difficult to grasp without taking students through authentic learning tasks. This paper describes the learning concept, the creation of the machinima and how it is used with first year accountancy students through a think out loud protocol.