Hi Billy,

Excellent points.

On your first one, I think we need to draw a spectrum from in-class, face-to-face with a facilitator all the way through to an individual downloading their own. The trick, to my mind, is how we can leverage technologies to mitigate the distance from the f2f + facilitator. Could we use online forums? Could we use real-time gaming? Honestly, this is an issue that goes well beyond the military and has some pretty serious implications for any form of education. BTW, any ideas you have would be appreciated - especially since I know where you work and what you're studying !

The second point is more tricky. The "final product" I would like to see would be a full blown, highly interactive virtual world type scenario - sort of like the gaming machines in Melissa Scott's The Game Beyond if you ever read it. We're not there yet, but what I saw was certainly impressive within its limits. As with most changes in teaching technology, i think it would be useful to start with the version they have now and gradually introduce more interaction and possibilities.

The problem with introducing radical changes in teaching technology is that you have to teach both the teachers how to use it and the students how to learn from it. The version they have now is a straight exaptation of older case study methods that they use right now, so there's not much of a learning curve. However, the more flexibility that's added into the system, the steeper the learning curve (especially for the teachers!).

On your last couple of points, and I think they are all related, let me just say that I selected WoW mainly because it is full of real people. The best "map" of a person is a person, so ideally, you would end up not using AIs at all - just people. That was one of the big strengths of D&D when you get right down to it. As long as you had a good DM, you could have a great game.

Cheers,

Marc