Education: A Right Career Move

Although Aldrich provides a good guide with an overall view of pitfalls or benefits of serious games, I did not think there was enough depth in design and effective learning techniques for my research needs. For an HR or training professional who wants to get an extensive overview in this field, this book would be very useful.
Rating: 3 / 5

This is a book that effectively introduces fundamental concepts and surveys the state-of-the-art for at least two different audiences: e-learning managers faced with buying a training simulation or managing a simulation development project, and students in introductory games and simulations courses. It will also serve very well to get novice developers started, although it does not claim to be an A-to-Z how-to development guide. The pedagogical quality of Aldrich’s organization and writing makes it a fast but informative read. His writing style is clear, concise, easy-going and humorous–you’ll crack a smile fairly often as you move through the chapters. By doing a good job of incorporating pedagogy and humor, Aldrich genuinely practices what he preaches, which is refreshing and won my respect. Almost everyone interested in games and simulation design will find at least a few pages that explain some area better than they’ve ever seen it explained, or that map out a topic remarkably well. The breadth of the survey, if not the depth, is impressive.

Learning By Doing is sure to be useful to corporate e-learning practitioners who aren’t experienced specialists in game or simulation design, and who haven’t been satisfied by more abstract and theoretical academic treatments of the subject. Training managers who are dealing with vendors and want to cut through the sales hype and jargon will find Aldrich’s experience as an industry analyst especially helpful: scattered throughout are warnings, suggestions and questions that need to be asked before you take the plunge. Designers and developers who are moving from more conventional material into simulations, or who want to build game elements into their work, will also find this book is the right place to start to get a feel for the field.

Learning By Doing also looks promising as a textbook for introductory games and simulations courses, either for undergraduates or Master’s level. The latter describes my situation, and I’ve found that Aldrich’s survey and analytical approach has helped me organize my thinking. Unlike some academic treatments, this book does not focus on abstract semantics and sterile schema building: his writing is practical, nuanced and based on real experience. Aldrich’s sensible and illuminating treatment of “games vs. simulations” semantics stands out–they’re not mutually exclusive, but some authors would have you believe this. Another feature that recommends Learning by Doing to profs and students is its currency: this is a rapidly-evolving field, and the standard texts that cover both games and sims that I’ve seen and used hail from the Nineties, and are both a little stale and a little too theory-based (they’d fit better in anthropology or sociology classes than instructional design, educational technology or anything similarly practical and applied). The index is excellent–this is one of my make-or-break criteria for deciding if a book is worthwhile, and Aldrich has not cut corners here.

There are a few caveats: academic readers should know that many design hints and theory discussions are relatively brief, and ideas are not cited or footnoted in scholarly style. Thought leaders and their affiliations are provided in the text, however, usually one per idea. There is no unified bibliogaphy, although most chapters have lists of further reading. Learning By Doing is not for more advanced graduate-school readers who want the theoretical academic approach, and who already have a basic understanding of types of sims that are out there, and of the psychology that underlies their effectiveness in the right situations.

Despite helpful sections on development and project management, this is not a detailed development guide. This book will take a designer or developer part of the way toward being ready to build something that will work in a real implementation, but not all the way. For detailed design and development guidance, you’ll need something like Kaye and Castillo’s FlashMX for Interactive Simulation, along with a standard ISD text like Dick and Carey–and this is for a relatively simple device simulation project. The details of planning and developing constructive and distributed military simulations, full flight simulators and immersive video games are obviously well beyond the scope of this book.
Rating: 5 / 5