business

The book is broken into four sections.

Background: Aldrich gives the reader some background on e-learning and computer games today. This section is quite easy to read and funny at times, especially when he talks about the challenges of being an analyst.
* Do You Want Fries with That E-Learning?
* In the Game
* The Primary Colors of Content
* The E-Learning Arms Race

Rethinking Educational Experiences: Building a simulation requires a higher standard of consistancy, rigor, even imagination than an academic lecture or book. Aldrich looks at the topic of leadership through the classic linear perspective, and then expands it along the new dimensions of interactivity. Other people have mentioned this as well, but I learned more about leadership here than through any other formal process.
* The Myth of Subject Matter Experts
* The Search for Contents
* What Would a Leadership Situation Look Like?
* Uncovering the Essence of Leadership
* The Lure of Linear Content

* Rules for a Post-Textbook World: Simulation Design Principles

The Technical Issues: In the same way that traditional academic leadership material made for insufficient content, so was the classic, existing computer game genres insufficient for a template. Aldrich explains the process of creating a whole new type of computer experience, (as different and as similar to computer games as computer games genres are from each other)based on their leadership content. I can see how people might skim these chapters (and I breezed through some pages myself), but I found them oddly satisying in bridging the chasm between high level theory to specific. Aldrich did a good job at making technical issues understandable to someone like myself who is not at all technical. Most importantly, he describes a kind of work that seems necessary to create a educational experience, but totally absent from most academic content today.
* The Beginning of Open-Ended Content: Sets and Figures
* What Do People Do All Day? The Animation System
* The Ultimate Hurdle: The Dialogue System
* Modeling a Little World: The Physics System
* Modeling the Inhabitants: The AI System
* A New Look at Work: The Interface System
* The Scariest Word of All: Gameplay
* Why Use Grades, Anyway? Metrics, Scores, and Simulations

Conclusions: With each of the final chapter, Aldrich zooms out one layer. First he wraps up the Virtual Leader story, then discusses the implications for any simulation designer, any corporate environment, and most interesting and controversial, all schools.
* Virtual Leader vs. the World
* 17 Simulation Issues
* A Manifest Destiny: Simulations and the Training Industry
* Looking Back at Schools

Simulations and the Future of Learning is undoubtably a "big" book, probably one of the most important books I have read in a long time. I have read it twice and still haven't come to terms with all of the discoveries and implications. Now I am just waiting for some colleagues to finish it to get some more perspectives.

Clark's book not only describes an intriguing process for the development of simulations and the future of e-learning, he does an excellent job describing a leadership model that works.

In fact, Clark's leadership model was studied and utilized by a number of my students in a team-based class. Using Clark's book, they were able to apply the concepts of balancing Power, Ideas and Tension successfully to accomplish work. Just as Clark described.

The story Clark tells is fun to read, interesting and educational. I strongly recommend it to all my students...and they love it. My instructional technology students all relate to interactive computer environments from PS2s to Xbox to Riven to SimCity and Roller Coaster Tycoon and they see no other alternative to what Clark describes in terms of how they want to learn in the future (and now for that matter). My students also appreciate the insight into the development process of a major learning initiative. The story of the success and failure of bringing the product to market.

I completely enjoyed this book because it adeptly foretells the future of learning and where academics and corporate training folks need to go. If you are involved with designing or managing learning within any type of environment, you need to read this book.

Every person who has played a modern-day simulation game has had to wonder how that level of interaction can be used to teach and train. Simulation and the Future of Learning doesn't just explain that it's possible, it proves it.

Aldrich's extensive background in e-learning products gives him a very qualified view of what needs to improve in the future of learning. The answer is simulations. Real-time, engaging and realistic simulations. He explains in detail the hurdles, headaches, and horrors of developing what has become one of the best leadership training tools on the market--Virtual Leader.

While there is little explanation of instructional theory and methods, this book is HIGHLY recommended to any organization looking to get into the educational simulation business. It provides a realistic picture of the decisions designers will face when building the next generation of learning products.